Nowadays, the asphaltene precipitation and deposition were known as two main issues during different oil production stages. Using nanoparticles for adsorbing asphaltene was known as an efficient method among researchers for solving asphaltene related problems. In this study, Ni-doped ZnO–ZrO2 nanocomposites (NCs) has been synthesized and characterized with SEM, XRD, and EDAX for asphaltene precipitation inhibition in the static phase and solving asphaltene deposition problems of dynamic natural depletion tests in low permeability carbonate reservoir. CO2-oil IFT tests, isotherm models, natural depletion tests at static phase were performed in the presence of NCs and the results were compared with ZrO2 nanoparticles. Then, natural depletion tests at dynamic phase were designed in the presence of NCs at obtained static conditions for surveying permeability/porosity reduction in porous media. Based on the CO2-oil IFT readings data and UV-Vis results, NCs adsorbed more asphaltene and in comparison to ZrO2 nanoparticles [NCs: 160.5 mg/g, and ZrO2:132 mg/g], and the isotherm model results shows that the adsorption data was adapted well with Langmuir isotherm than Freundlich isotherm for both nanoparticles. NCs was decreased asphaltene precipitation and asphaltene aggregation more than ZrO2 nanoparticles at static phase. Asphaltene precipitation in the presence of NCs and ZrO2 nanoparticles decreased from (6.20 wt. %, 17.50 wt. %) to (2.8 wt. %, 6.25 wt. %) and (5.29 wt. %, 12.17 wt. %), respectively, and after adding NCs in porous media, asphaltene depositions was decreased and permeability/porosity reduction parameters were improved.
