Investigation of Phase and Emulsion Behavior, Surfactant Retention and Condensate Recovery for Condensate/Water/Ethanol Mixtures

This semi-annual technical progress report describes work performed at Morehouse College under DOE Grant No. DE-FG26-02NT15447 during the period October 01, 2003 to March 31, 2004 which covers the third six months of the project. Presently work is in progress to characterize phase and emulsion behavior for ethylbenzene/water/ethanol system. Ethylbenzene that has the equivalent carbon number is used as the model condensate. During this reporting period, temperature scans were performed mixing equal volumes of ethylbenzene and 10mM NaCl water with various concentrations of ethanol ranging from 2 to 70 vol%. For the range of temperatures tested (2 to 70 C), results indicate that temperature is invariant and produced a single phase for ethanol concentrations greater than 60 vol%. For ethanol concentrations less than 60 vol%, only two phases were obtained with aqueous rich bottom phase more in volume than that of the ethylbenzene rich top phase. Linear coreflooding experiments were completed by our industrial partner in this project, Surtek, CO, to measure the condensate recovery in flooding processes. It was found about 30% ethylbenzene recovery was obtained by the waterflooding, however, 2wt% ethanol flooding did not produce incremental recovery of the ethylbenzene. Radial coreflooding with ethanol injection prior to water injection is in progress to assess the effectiveness of the surfactant flooding in the recovery of condensate