scholarly journals Optimal Zwitterionic Surfactant Slug for an Improved Oil Recovery in Oil Wet Carbonate Rocks

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
Madison Barth ◽  
Japan Trivedi ◽  
Benedicta Nwani ◽  
Yosamin Esanullah
Keyword(s):  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbonate Rocks ◽  
Surfactant Concentration ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Ionic Surfactant ◽  
Improved Oil Recovery ◽  
Fluid Analysis ◽  
Tertiary Recovery ◽  
Brine Salinity

Of recent, there has been research and development in the technologies/techniques required to meet the ever-growing energy demand in the world. Oil is a major source of energy which is contained in over 50% of carbonate reservoirs. The oil/mixed wettability of carbonate rocks makes it technically challenging to recover the needed oil. The process of crude oil recovery has three different stages primary, secondary and tertiary recovery. Tertiary recovery is also known as enhanced oil recovery or EOR. EOR includes the use of surfactants to reduce the interfacial tension between a hydrocarbon and brine, thus suspending them both in a microemulsion. Surfactant performance can be affected by multiple variables, including brine salinity, surfactant concentration, and type of hydrocarbon. A petroleum engineer must take all variables into consideration when selecting a surfactant to make sure that its efficiency is as high as possible, especially because the use of surfactants is costly.  In this work, a chembetaine zwitter ionic surfactant of two different concentrations are evaluated at various synthetic formation brine salinities for their favourable wettability alteration and interfacial tension reduction in oil-wet carbonate- Silurian Dolomite. For the evaluation, fluid-fluid and rock-fluid analysis are carried out to select the optimal surfactant concentration and brine salinity with the greatest improved oil recovery potential.  Results are indicative that the surfactant at the two concentrations studied is compatible at the ranges of salinities evaluated. However, from the fluid-fluid analysis, there was no ultra-low interfacial tension that is needed for oil mobilization. More so, the rock-fluid analysis shows that the surfactant is not able to alter the wettability of oil-wet rocks favourably. The optimal surfactant slug for the greatest oil recovery, in this case, would be expected at 0.5% surfactant concentration in 10,000 ppm synthetic formation brine salinity. This study, therefore, serves as a guide for the design of optimal surfactant slug in oil-wet carbonate cores requires to reduce non-productive time, prevent reservoir damage and therefore improve recovery.

scholarly journals Experimental study of combined low salinity and surfactant flooding effect on oil recovery

2020 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Abdulmecit Araz ◽  
Farad Kamyabi
Keyword(s):  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
High Salinity ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Moderate Increase ◽  
Surfactant Flooding ◽  
Improved Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Saturation ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Salinity Water

A new generation improved oil recovery methods comes from combining techniques to make the overall process of oil recovery more efficient. One of the most promising methods is combined Low Salinity Surfactant (LSS) flooding. Low salinity brine injection has proven by numerous laboratory core flood experiments to give a moderate increase in oil recovery. Current research shows that this method may be further enhanced by introduction of surfactants optimized for lowsal environment by reducing the interfacial tension. Researchers have suggested different mechanisms in the literature such as pH variation, fines migration, multi-component ionic exchange, interfacial tension reduction and wettability alteration for improved oil recovery during lowsal injection. In this study, surfactant solubility in lowsal brine was examined by bottle test experiments. A series of core displacement experiments was conducted on nine crude oil aged Berea core plugs that were designed to determine the impact of brine composition, wettability alteration, Low Salinity Water (LSW) and LSS flooding on Enhancing Oil Recovery (EOR). Laboratory core flooding experiments were conducted on the samples in a heating cabinet at 60 °C using five different brine compositions with different concentrations of NaCl, CaCl2 and MgCl2. The samples were first reached to initial water saturation, Swi, by injecting connate water (high salinity water). LSW injection followed by LSS flooding performed on the samples to obtain the irreducible oil saturation. The results showed a significant potential of oil recovery with maximum additional recovery of 7% Original Oil in Place (OOIP) by injection of LS water (10% LS brine and 90% distilled water) into water-wet cores compared to high salinity waterflooding. It is also concluded that oil recovery increases as wettability changes from water-wet to neutral-wet regardless of the salinity compositions. A reduction in residual oil saturation, Sor, by 1.1–4.8% occurred for various brine compositions after LSS flooding in tertiary recovery mode. The absence of clay swelling and fine migration has been confirmed by the stable differential pressure recorded for both LSW and LSS flooding. Aging the samples at high temperature prevented the problem of fines production. Combined LSS flooding resulted in an additional oil recovery of 9.2% OOIP when applied after LSW flooding. Surfactants improved the oil recovery by reducing the oil-water interfacial tension. In addition, lowsal environment decreased the surfactant retention, thus led to successful LSS flooding. The results showed that combined LSS flooding may be one of the most promising methods in EOR. This hybrid improved oil recovery method is economically more attractive and feasible compared to separate low salinity waterflooding or surfactant flooding.

scholarly journals Optimal Zwitterionic Surfactant Slug for an Improved Oil Recovery in Oil Wet Carbonate Rocks - Silurian Dolomite

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-28
Author(s):  
Yosamin Esanullah ◽  
Japan Trivedi ◽  
Benedicta Nwani ◽  
Madison Barth
Keyword(s):  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Phase Behavior ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Carbonate Rock ◽  
Zwitterionic Surfactant ◽  
Fluid Analysis ◽  
Tertiary Recovery ◽  
Behavior Test

The increase in energy demand has led to extensive research and development on economically, environmentally and technically feasible ways of improving the ever-growing energy demand. A common derivative of energy is from hydrocarbons, specifically oil. The process of oil recovery can be divided into primary, secondary, and tertiary recovery (also known as enhanced oil recovery). Once the internal pressure of a reservoir has depleted enough during primary and secondary recovery, more advanced techniques in enhanced oil recovery mechanisms are used to recover 50-80% of oil in the reservoir. Tertiary recovery includes the use of surfactants to reduce interfacial tension (IFT) or alter wettability. In this work, a zwitter ionic surfactant at two different concentrations is evaluated for its ability to reduce the interfacial tension between oil and water, as well as altering wettability in silurian dolomite. To achieve this, fluid-fluid analysis was done by a compatibility test, phase behavior test and interfacial tension measurements. Rock-fluid analysis was also completed by means of floatation test, carried out with carbonate rock particles to analyze the surfactant’s ability to alter wettability. Solution pH measurements were taken to validate the qualitative floatation test results. Results show that the surfactant, chembetaine C surfactant, is compatible with all ranges of salinities investigated, though was not able to produce a winsor type III micro-emulsion. The results of the interfacial tension measurements are in line with the phase behavior test, as none of the measurements were at ultra-low values. Surfactant retention is likely to occur with the analyzed zwitterionic surfactant based on the fluid-fluid analysis. Qualitative results from the floatation test show that the wettability of the carbonate rock particles cannot be significantly altered to more water-wet conditions. The pH of the solution remains at alkaline values, which can be beneficial in enhanced oil recovery in producing soap in situ, also known as saponification. Overall, tests conclude that this zwitterionic surfactant at 1% concentration would be most effective at 10,000 ppm salinity brine, though overall is not suitable for chemically enhanced oil recovery.

scholarly journals Effect of Environment-Friendly Non-Ionic Surfactant on Interfacial Tension Reduction and Wettability Alteration; Implications for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 3988 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omid Haghighi ◽  
Ghasem Zargar ◽  
Abbas Khaksar Manshad ◽  
Muhammad Ali ◽  
Mohammad Takassi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Water Flooding ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Ionic Surfactant ◽  
Surfactant Flooding ◽  
Core Flooding ◽  
Environment Friendly ◽  
Reservoir Rocks

Production from mature oil reservoirs can be optimized by using the surfactant flooding technique. This can be achieved by reducing oil and water interfacial tension (IFT) and modifying wettability to hydrophilic conditions. In this study, a novel green non-ionic surfactant (dodecanoyl-glucosamine surfactant) was synthesized and used to modify the wettability of carbonate reservoirs to hydrophilic conditions as well as to decrease the IFT of hydrophobic oil–water systems. The synthesized non-ionic surfactant was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and chemical shift nuclear magnetic resonance (HNMR) analyses. Further pH, turbidity, density, and conductivity were investigated to measure the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of surfactant solutions. The result shows that this surfactant alters wettability from 148.93° to 65.54° and IFT from 30 to 14 dynes/cm. Core-flooding results have shown that oil recovery was increased from 40% (by water flooding) to 59% (by surfactant flooding). In addition, it is identified that this novel non-ionic surfactant can be used in CO2 storage applications due to its ability to alter the hydrophobicity into hydrophilicity of the reservoir rocks.

scholarly journals Mechanism of active silica nanofluids based on interface-regulated effect during spontaneous imbibition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu-Guang Song ◽  
Ming-Wei Zhao ◽  
Cai-Li Dai ◽  
Xin-Ke Wang ◽  
Wen-Jiao Lv
Keyword(s):  
Contact Angle ◽  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Dynamic Contact Angle ◽  
Liquid Interface ◽  
Spontaneous Imbibition ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Low Permeability ◽  
Oil Water ◽  
Solid Liquid

AbstractThe ultra-low permeability reservoir is regarded as an important energy source for oil and gas resource development and is attracting more and more attention. In this work, the active silica nanofluids were prepared by modified active silica nanoparticles and surfactant BSSB-12. The dispersion stability tests showed that the hydraulic radius of nanofluids was 58.59 nm and the zeta potential was − 48.39 mV. The active nanofluids can simultaneously regulate liquid–liquid interface and solid–liquid interface. The nanofluids can reduce the oil/water interfacial tension (IFT) from 23.5 to 6.7 mN/m, and the oil/water/solid contact angle was altered from 42° to 145°. The spontaneous imbibition tests showed that the oil recovery of 0.1 wt% active nanofluids was 20.5% and 8.5% higher than that of 3 wt% NaCl solution and 0.1 wt% BSSB-12 solution. Finally, the effects of nanofluids on dynamic contact angle, dynamic interfacial tension and moduli were studied from the adsorption behavior of nanofluids at solid–liquid and liquid–liquid interface. The oil detaching and transporting are completed by synergistic effect of wettability alteration and interfacial tension reduction. The findings of this study can help in better understanding of active nanofluids for EOR in ultra-low permeability reservoirs.

Effect of 2D Alpha-Zirconium Phosphate Nanosheets in Interfacial Tension Reduction and Wettability Alteration: Implications for Enhanced Oil Recovery

SPE Journal ◽  
2022 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Song Qing ◽  
Hong Chen ◽  
Li-juan Han ◽  
Zhongbin Ye ◽  
Yihao Liao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Zirconium Phosphate ◽  
Contact Angle Measurement ◽  
Angle Measurement ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Tetrabutylammonium Hydroxide ◽  
Transmission Electron ◽  
2D Nanosheets

Summary α-Zirconium phosphate (α-ZrP) nanocrystals were synthesized by refluxing method and subsequently exfoliated into extremely thin 2D nanosheets by tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAOH) solution. Dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to characterize the size distribution and morphology of α-ZrP nanosheets. Interfacial tension (IFT) and contact angle measurement were conducted by different concentrations of α-ZrP nanosheets solutions. The results displayed that the wettability of porous media surface was altered from oleophilic to hydrophilic and the IFT decreased with the increasing of α-ZrP nanosheets concentrations. A new method was proposed to calculate the Hamaker constant for 2D α-ZrP nanosheets. The calculated results displayed that α-ZrP nanosheets were not easy to agglomerate under experimental environment and when the interaction energy barrier increased, the transport amount of α-ZrP nanosheets also increased. Coreflooding tests were also performed with various concentrations and the oil recovery efficiency increased from 33.59 to 51.26% when α-ZrP nanosheets concentrations increased from 50 to 1,000 ppm.

Experimental investigation of the effect of green TiO2/Quartz nanocomposite on interfacial tension reduction, wettability alteration, and oil recovery improvement

Fuel ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 263 ◽  
pp. 116599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghasem Zargar ◽  
Tooraj Arabpour ◽  
Abbas Khaksar Manshad ◽  
Jagar A. Ali ◽  
S. Mohammad Sajadi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Tension Reduction
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