IBM has developed a " fluid - flow - on - chip " platform that enables it to build higher - accuracy simulations that take into account the behaviour of oil droplets at the surface . The scientists based at IBM's Nano Lab in Rio de Janeiro, led by Dr. Mathias Steiner, Manager, Industrial Technology & Science, recently published this research in a Scientific Reports study, Adsorption energy as a metric for wettability at the nanoscale, explaining how the properties of liquid oil molecules behave in completely different and unexpected ways when in contact with a solid material, at the nanoscale. The platform is part of a cloud - based enhanced oil recovery adviser service that uses computational three - dimensional representations of actual reservoir rock that will ultimately generate reservoir - specific recovery recommendations . The basis for the technology was the discovery that , at the surface , a droplet of oil acts more like a flat film against a solid , and dislodging such molecules takes more energy than previous models predicted .
IBM has developed a " fluid - flow - on - chip " platform that enables it to build higher - accuracy simulations that take into account the behaviour of oil droplets at the surface . The platform is part of a cloud - based enhanced oil recovery adviser service that uses computational three - dimensional representations of actual reservoir rock that will ultimately generate reservoir - specific recovery recommendations . The basis for the technology was the discovery that , at the surface , a droplet of oil acts more like a flat film against a solid , and dislodging such molecules takes more energy than previous models predicted .