Numerical modeling of temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracer for fractured geothermal reservoir characterization

Information on the temperature distribution of subsurface reservoirs is essential for geothermal energy development. One of the promising tools to detect the reservoir temperature distribution is temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracers whose functionality has been extensively investigated in both theoretical and experimental ways in the last decade. However, most related studies were limited to simplified geometries and ignored the dynamic interplays of fluid flow, heat transfer, transport and reaction of the temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracer. The response behavior and working mechanisms of such nanotracers in a realistic three-dimensional system still have not been fully revealed through a systematic study. In this work, we develop a numerical modeling approach to simulate field implementation of these nanotracers in a fractured geothermal reservoir. This study aims to evaluate whether the injection of multiple temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracers with different thresholds can be used to estimate the temperature distribution and provide information on the thermal and geological heterogeneities. Several scenarios have been investigated for the geothermal reservoir including homogeneous and non-homogeneous cases (e.g., thermal and geological heterogeneities). Our obtained results from the nanotracer breakthrough curves show that the deviation temperatures in peak concentration values provide an upper limit of the lowest temperature and precise highest temperature for the reservoir temperature range. The deviation temperature of the peak arrival time curve accurately estimates the highest temperature along the main streamlines between the wells. The proposed analysis curves based on the nanotracer breakthrough data were visibly affected by geological heterogeneities including their conductivities and orientations as well as thermal heterogeneities in the geothermal reservoir.