Nanomaterials in petroleum engineering: Progress, current applications and emerging challenges

The petroleum industry faces mounting challenges in exploring, extracting, and processing hydrocarbon resources as conventional reserves become depleted and operations move toward more technically demanding environments. This review examines the transformative role of nanomaterials across the petroleum industry value chain, from exploration to downstream processing. Nanomaterials, with dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers, exhibit unique physical and chemical properties that enable unprecedented capabilities in reservoir characterization, drilling operations, and enhanced oil recovery. Metal oxide nanoparticles and carbon-based nanomaterials have demonstrated remarkable effectiveness in improving drilling fluid stability, cement integrity, and oil displacement efficiency. In drilling applications, nanoparticle-enhanced fluids show superior performance in high-pressure high-temperature conditions, while nano-modified cementing materials provide exceptional zonal isolation and long-term wellbore integrity. For enhanced oil recovery, liquid nanofluids achieve significantly higher recovery rates in both small pores (65.6 %) and large pores (24.8 %) compared to conventional methods. In downstream operations, nanocatalysts revolutionize refining processes through improved reaction efficiency and selectivity. Environmental applications of nanomaterials show particular promise in oil spill remediation and produced water treatment, with magnetic nanoparticles achieving 85–99.99 % oil removal efficiency. While challenges remain in scaling up production and ensuring long-term stability under reservoir conditions, continued advancement in nanomaterial synthesis and characterization techniques promises to further expand their role in addressing critical industry challenges.