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• Fabricated microfluidics have distinctive features that help in visualization the reservoir. • The microfluidic matrix was designed as a fractured reservoir that mimics the reservoir. • Microfluidics were used for determination the right nanofluid for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Microfluidics is an appealing technique for enhanced oil recovery since it offers numerous advantages over traditional core flooding mechanisms due to their realistic representation of reservoir conditions at the microscale. In this work, we investigated the performance of copper oxide-based nanofluids in the presence of a DCMS-8 cationic surfactant. First, copper oxide nanoparticles of an average particle size of 10 nm were synthesized by the sol–gel method and characterized using various characterization techniques. The results indicated that copper oxide and surfactant-based nanofluids reduced the interfacial tension by 54 %, depending on the concentration of nanoparticles in the suspension. Furthermore, the formation wettability alteration was investigated using contact angle measurements, and the results showed that nanofluid was able to reduce the contact angle from 48o to 20o in 10 min. The shear rheological response indicated that the nanofluids could reduce the viscosity of crude oil from 0.48 (Pa s) to 0.31 (Pa s). Notably, the flooding results showed that copper oxide-based nanofluids were able to recover 61 % of the original oil initially in place, with additional recovery rates of 65 % and 72 % when used with cationic surfactants, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), and polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), respectively. Finally, the fluorescent images confirmed that surfactant-based nanofluid has a higher sweeping efficiency in porous formation. In this study, the use of copper oxide nanoparticles and cationic surfactant has resulted in the creation of captivating and compelling nanofluids that exhibit reasonable stability of nanoparticles in the base fluid and high recovery rates of residual oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]