The mass loss of
surfactant during flowing through porous media
is one of the major concerns to surfactant-based Enhanced Oil Recovery
(EOR) techniques and also a critical issue for viscoelastic surfactant
(VES), which is a novel and promising flooding agent compared against
the traditional displacing chemicals. This paper comprehensively investigated
the interactions between a VES and several minerals. The static adsorption
tests of VES on quartz, montmorillonite and kaolinite were first carried
out at 65 °C. Empirical models were established to describe the
VES adsorptive isothermal beahviors on the mineral surfaces. The data
indicated that the VES showed L, S and LS adsorption isotherm patterns
on quartz, montmorillonite, and kaolinite, respectively. The adsorption
of VES was notably influenced by temperature, pH value, salinity and
Ca2+. As a result of adsorption on clay surfaces, the viscosity
and surface activity of the VES solution were significantly decreased.
Moreover, the large hydrodynamic size of VES aggregates caused an
inaccessible pore volume (IPV) during flowing through porous media.
The magnitude of VES retention was considerably impacted by permeability
(pore radius), VES concentration, displacing velocity and salinity
under reservoir conditions. This work provided some new insights into
oil recovery mechanisms of viscoelastic surfactant flooding.