Many challenging issues are encountered along the petroleum production such as the wettability alteration of reservoir solids due to deposition of petroleum materials, stabilization/destabilization of water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions and treatment of tailings water. All these problems are essentially driven by the fundamental intermolecular and surface forces among the different components (i.e., water, oil, solid and gas) in the surrounding complex fluid media, and comprehensive understanding of the interactions among these components will pave the way to the development of advanced materials and technologies for improved petroleum production processes.

In this work, we have reviewed the quantitative force measurement methods in different petroleum systems by using nanomechanical techniques including surface forces apparatus (SFA) and atomic force microscope (AFM). Interaction forces between petroleum components (e.g., asphaltenes) and mineral solids in both organic solvents and aqueous solutions are reviewed and correlated to the wettability change of the reservoir solids. The recent key progress in quantifying the surface forces of water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsion drops using AFM drop probe techniques are discussed. The interaction forces of polymer flocculants and colloidal particles are correlated to the performance of tailings water treatment. The current knowledge gap and future perspectives are also presented.