Rheological properties evaluation of hydrogels based on xanthan polymer in the presence of nanoparticles

One of the problems related to oil recovery is water production, which reduces the production life of oil reservoirs and wells. Nowadays, the polymer gel injection method is used to control water production in the reservoir. In this study, an attempt has been made to investigate the rheological properties of xanthan-based hydrogels, considering Iran's reservoirs and also due to the existence of environmental problems in the field of synthetic polymers. The strength and stability of hydrogels can be applied by changing environmental conditions as a function of time and shear rate. For this purpose, the viscoelastic properties of hydrogels, including the elastic and viscous modulus, have been studied in relation to temperature, time and deformation rate for the gelant solution. Also, the effect of the composition of hydrogels, including the polymer concentration, the weight ratio of the crosslinking agent to the polymer, and the weight percentage of silica nanoparticles was considered in the study of rheological properties. Additionally, gelation time has been studied as one of the most important determining parameters of hydrogel during injection in porous medium.