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Resolving an Enhanced Oil Recovery Challenge: Optimum Formulation of a Surfactant‐Oil–Water System Made Insensitive to Dilution
Author(s) -
Arandia María Antonieta,
Forgiarini Ana María,
Salager JeanLouis
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of surfactants and detergents
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.349
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1558-9293
pISSN - 1097-3958
DOI - 10.1007/s11743-009-1171-1
Subject(s) - chemistry , dilution , pulmonary surfactant , surface tension , nonionic surfactant , enhanced oil recovery , petroleum , chromatography , oil in place , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , thermodynamics , biochemistry , physics , engineering
Upon dilution by the petroleum reservoir connate water, the anionic commercial surfactant blend often used in enhanced oil recovery by low tension, becomes more lipophilic at the interface because of so‐called selective partitioning. Hence, the optimum formulation is not maintained when the injected slug moves through the reservoir. An opposite variation is found for ethoxylated nonionic surfactant systems. As a consequence of these antagonistic influences, the optimum formulation shift produced by dilution may be eliminated by using an appropriate mixture of anionic and nonionic commercial surfactants, so that the two effects exactly cancel out.