Engineered Nanomaterials for Sustainable Oil Separation and Recovery

In this review, we focus on engineered nanomaterials (NMs) offering economic and environmental sustainability in oil extraction. We introduce underlying issues in oil recovery and separation and discuss fundamental physical and chemical interactions in typical oil‐water‐solid systems that guide the design of NMs. In recovery, the NMs change rock wettability, permeability, or sweep fluid properties to attain optimal resource use and minimal environmental impact. Applied NMs include nanosurfactants, silica core‐shell structures, nano‐encapsulated acids, and nanofluids. While for separation, the NMs use mechanisms of adsorption, filtration, or dispersion to improve separation performance in industrial or aquatic oil spill settings. The NMs include iron oxide nanoparticles, graphene Joule‐heating sponges, superhydrophilic poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes, and amphiphilic Janus silicon dioxide nanoparticles. Albeit the NMs exhibit impressive performance in sustainable oil extraction, a technological gap remains between the lab‐scale demonstrations and practical field deployment. We conclude with a perspective on bridging this gap. Sustainable oil separation and recovery processes benefit from the incorporation of advanced nanomaterials that improve on economic and environmental objectives. In oil recovery, nanomaterials (NMs) improve overall sustainability by favorably altering the wettability of reservoir rock surfaces, the permeability of rock network, and sweep of trapped oil. While for separation, NMs enhance performance by adsorption, filtration, and dispersion.