SURFACTANT - POLYMER INTERACTION FOR IMPROVED OIL RECOVERY

The goal of this research is to use the interaction between a surfactant and a polymer for efficient displacement of tertiary oil by improving slug integrity, adsorption and mobility control. Surfactant--polymer flooding has been shown to be highly effective in laboratory-scale linear floods. The focus of this proposal is to design an inexpensive surfactant-polymer mixture that can efficiently recover tertiary oil by avoiding surfactant slug degradation, high adsorption and viscous/heterogeneity fingering. This report contains data concerning selection of appropriate fluids for use in laboratory experiments and numerical simulations. A mixture comprising a ''pseudo oil'' with appropriate surfactant and polymer is proposed. The properties of this system has been determined. The experimental set-up has been conditioned for use and experiments involving the aforementioned system have already started. A commercial simulator has been acquired for use in reproducing the experiments. A graduate student has been trained in its use. Linear stability analysis equations have been developed and phase maps for one and two-dimensions are currently computed