Electromagnetic impact on oil reservoir manifests itself in various physical and chemical phenomena and attracts a significant scientific and technological interest. Microwave (MW) radiation heating can be more efficient for the oil recovery than heat transfer by convection or by thermal conduction. MW influence can also lead to significant changes in the physicochemical and rheological properties of oil caused by chemical processes of transformation of the oil high-molecular components such as resins and asphaltenes. The efficiency of transition-metal catalysts applied for the in-situ conversion of hydrocarbons directly in the reservoir might be significantly increased by exposing the oil formation to MW radiation. Actually, transition metals nanoparticles and their oxides are considered as active absorbers of MW radiation and; therefore, they can be used to intensify MW impact on the reservoir. Catalyst particles dispersed in the formation provide enhanced MW sweep. Taken together, the functioning of the catalysts and the effect of microwave radiation provide deep conversion of resins and asphaltenes, a decrease in the viscosity of the produced oil and an increase in oil recovery factor, along with a decrease in water cut of the well production. The present review analyzes the latest works on the combined application of microwave exposure and dispersed catalysts. In addition, this review discusses the prospects and perspectives of practical application of electromagnetic heating to enhance heavy oil recovery in the presence of nanoparticles.

Our knowledge of electromagnetic heating’s effect on heavy oil upgrading is largely based on very limited data. The aim of the present research was thus to study in detail the effect of microwave exposure in the absence and presence of nanosized magnetite on the composition of heavy oil. The obtained data reveal that the use of nanosized magnetite improves not only microwave radiation application as a result of its absorption and release of thermal energy but also that these nanoparticles have a catalytic ability to break carbon–heteroatom bonds in the composition of resins and asphaltene molecules. In fact, the overall reduction in asphaltenes or resins does not always adequately describe very important changes in asphaltene composition. Even a small fraction of broken carbon–heteroatom bonds can lead to an increase in the mobility of asphaltenes. Moreover, this study has shed light on the important evidence for asphaltenes’ transformation, which was found to be the formation of light aromatic compounds, such as alkylbenzenes, naphthalenes and phenanthrenes. These compounds were fixed in the composition of the aromatic fraction. We believe that these compounds could be the fragments obtained from asphaltenes’ degradation. The evidence from this study points toward the idea that asphaltenes’ destruction is crucial for increasing oil mobility in the reservoir rock during its thermal stimulation.

We report on the numerical simulations and experimental validation of a microwave planar sensor based on two coupled rings operating in the 4–6 GHz range. The fabricated sensor is used to characterize the dielectric permittivity of vegetable oils. We optimized the geometrical parameters in order to improve the overlap between the oil samples under study and the electric field. The experimental results showed an excellent match with the simulation results. The fabricated sensor allowed to retrieve the oil permittivity with a sensitivity of about 35 MHz per permittivity unit in the frequency range of interest. This paves the way to the realization of compact and sensitive sensors for a wide plethora of fields ranging from industry and food to chemistry and biology.

The Bragg microwave structures on the coaxial waveguide, constructed on the basis of the transfer optical technologies similar to the Bragg fiber grating, are considered. It is offered to use versions of such coaxial Bragg microwave structures in sensor application, in particular, creation of strain gauges, instruments for measuring dielectric constant of liquids and liquid products' level is considered. Methods for description of periodic inhomogeneous microwave structures characteristics and ways to modify the form of the frequency dependence of scattering parameters are viewed.