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As one common unconventional reservoir, shale plays a pivotal role to compensate the depletion of conventional oil resources. There are numerous nanoscale pores and ultra-narrow pore throats (sub 2-nm) in...

Divalent ions, which are omnipresent in brine, may be detrimental to surfactant functionalities during chemical flooding in the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process. Surfactant blending is one potential solution to overcome such an adverse effect. Herein, we report a molecular dynamics (MD) study to investigate the molecular arrangement and possible applications of surfactant blending in hard water-resistant chemical flooding for oil recovery. We chose commonly used anionic surfactants, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), as primary surfactants. The non-ionic (propanol) and cationic [cetrimonium bromide (CTAB)] surfactants with a wide range of concentrations are introduced to the primary system. We demonstrate that CTAB can disaggregate the cation bridging when their concentration is above a certain threshold. This threshold value is related to the surfactant and cosurfactant surface charge in the interface region. The cation bridging density is maintained at a low level when the sum of surfactants and cosurfactant interface charges is neutral or positive. On the other hand, propanol barely disaggregates the cation bridging. When propanol concentration is above a certain value, it even facilitates the cation bridging formation. Both propanol and CTAB can further decrease the oil-brine interfacial tension (IFT) while having different efficacies (IFT decrement rate is different as their interface concentration increases). More rapid IFT decrement is observed when cation bridging is disaggregated (i.e., in systems with high CTAB concentrations). Increasing propanol concentration barely affects hydrogen bond (H-bond) formation between SDS and H 2 O because of a low propanol distribution around SDS. On the other hand, the first increasing and then decreasing trend in Hbond density between SDS and H 2 O is observed as CTAB concentration increases. Our work should provide important insights into designing chemical formulas in chemical flooding applications.

Despite a great promise in the enhanced oil recovery in tight formations, CO2 flooding with surfactants is hindered due to the low surfactant solubility in supercritical CO2 (scCO2). Alcohol blending can increase the sodium bis­(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate (AOT) solubility in scCO2. While this finding offers a promising solution to CO2 flooding in tight oil reservoirs, to the best of our knowledge, their working mechanism still remains elusive. Herein, we report a molecular dynamics simulation study to explore the working mechanism of alcohols in reverse micelle (RM) dispersity (“solubility”) increment. The spontaneous aggregation process in two systems (System A consisting of AOT and scCO2; System B consisting of AOT, scCO2, and 10 wt % ethanol) are conducted under a typical tight oil reservoir condition (333 K and 200 bar). After 600 ns runs, the AOT molecules aggregate together and form rod-like RMs in System A, while form several small sphere-like RMs in System B. We observe that the aggregation process in System A occurs when two clusters approach each other end-to-end. More CO2 molecules are around the Na+ ion at the end of the clusters, which can be readily replaced by AOT molecules. On the other hand, the ethanol molecules can better solvate and surround Na+ ions, preventing the further aggregation of AOT clusters in System B. The potential of mean force calculations also reveal that while two small clusters formed by four AOT molecules attract each other in System A, they repel each other in System B. Our work should provide important insights into the design of scCO2-soluble surfactant formulas.