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• CO 2 flooding and DME-assisted CO 2 flooding were experimentally studied. • Experiments were performed with different shale samples. • DME-assisted CO 2 flooding has higher oil recovery compared to CO 2 flooding. CO 2 injection into shale oil reservoirs can effectively enhance recovery while simultaneously realizing geological storage. However, shale oil recovery by CO 2 injection remains low. In this paper, classification and evaluation standards for shale oil reservoirs were established. Based on this, comparative experiments between pure CO 2 flooding and dimethyl ether (DME)-assisted CO 2 flooding were conducted, supplemented by nuclear magnetic resonance testing. The microscopic production characteristics of shale oil under different injection methods were analyzed. The effects of injection pressure, gas injection volume, and DME concentration on oil recovery were studied, and the potential of DME-assisted CO 2 flooding was explored. The results show three types of shale samples: I, II, and III, with their corresponding physical properties, pore-throat structures, and percolation capacities decreasing in the same order. With the addition of DME, the CO 2 solubility increased, while the produced oil viscosity significantly decreased. DME-assisted CO 2 flooding has higher recovery compare with CO 2 flooding. The increase is more significant as pressure increases. The increase in ultimate recovery was the largest for type III samples. In addition, regardless of whether pure CO 2 flooding or DME-assisted CO 2 flooding was applied, a higher injection pressure and injection volume mean higher recovery. The increase by DME-assisted CO 2 flooding is much greater than that by pure CO 2 flooding. During the miscible stage, the recovery is greater than that during the immiscible stage. The recovery increased with increasing DME molar concentration and then slowed down; therefore, the recommended molar concentration of DME in the mixed gas is 20 mol%. The research results provide new methods and ideas for enhancing shale oil recovery and realizing geological storage by CO 2 injection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]