US Patent Issued to INPEX, HIROSAKI UNIVERSITY, NISSAN CHEMICAL on June 17 for "Silica nanoparticles for crude oil recovery using carbon dioxide, and crude oil recovery method" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,331,247, issued on June 17, was assigned to INPEX Corp. (Tokyo), HIROSAKI UNIVERSITY (Hirosaki, Japan) and NISSAN CHEMICAL Corp. (Tokyo).

"Silica nanoparticles for crude oil recovery using carbon dioxide, and crude oil recovery method" was invented by Takashi Hiraoka (Tokyo), Hideharu Yonebayashi (Tokyo), Yoshihiro Miyagawa (Tokyo), Masanobu Sagisaka (Hirosaki, Japan) and Masashi Abe (Sodegaura, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An aqueous sol used in CO2 foam flooding, one of EOR flooding methods for recovering crude oil by injection into the oil reservoir of an onshore or offshore oil field, the aqueous sol increasing foam stability...