Desorption of hydrocarbon chains by association with ionic and nonionic surfactants under flow as a mechanism for enhanced oil recovery

Abstract

The need to extract oil from wells where it is embedded on the surfaces of rocks has led to the development of new and improved enhanced oil recovery techniques. One of those is the injection of surfactants with water vapor, which promotes desorption of oil that can then be extracted using pumps, as the surfactants encapsulate the oil in foams. However, the mechanisms that lead to the optimal desorption of oil and the best type of surfactants to carry out desorption are not well known yet, which warrants the need to carry out basic research on this topic. In this work, we report non equilibrium dissipative particle dynamics simulations of model surfactants and oil molecules adsorbed on surfaces, with the purpose of studying the efficiency of the surfactants to desorb hydrocarbon chains, that are found adsorbed over flat surfaces. The model surfactants studied correspond to nonionic and cationic surfactants, and the hydrocarbon desorption is studied as a function of surfactant concentration under increasing Poiseuille flow. We obtain various hydrocarbon desorption isotherms for every model of surfactant proposed, under flow. Nonionic surfactants are found to be the most effective to desorb oil and the mechanisms that lead to this phenomenon are presented and discussed.

Spotlight on the New Natural Surfactant Flooding in Carbonate Rock Samples in Low Salinity Condition

“…In other words, during primary oil production and water flooding processes, a significant part of the oil in place remains inside the pores of carbonate rocks due to heterogeneities as well as deprived sweep efficiency that leads to unswept and/or bypassed oil. Having low recovery factor for carbonate settings, various EOR EOR techniques such as low salinity water injection 4 , 5 , surfactant flooding 6 , polymer-surfactant (SP) injection 7 , alkaline-surfactant-polymer 8 (ASP) injection in this type of petroleum formations have become interesting to research centers and oil companies in the recent years. Indeed, the main objectives of employing low salinity water and/or surfactant is to reduce the IFT parameter and also turn the wettability from oil-wet to neutral or water-wet 4 – 8 .…”

“…In general, the key parameters influencing the phase behavior of oil/brine/surfactant and also adsorption process are the brine salinity and formation heterogeneity 6 , 16 – 18 . Adams and Schievelbein (1987) 6 reported the information about a real case that deals with the surfactant flooding into a carbonate formation 6 . The case was a pilot-scale project that included two well pairs drilled in a San Andreas dolomite oil reservoir, located in West Texas.…”

Kinetic study of the metal-dipeptide complex with ninhydrin facilitated by gemini (m-s-m) surfactant micelles

“…Furthermore, geminis exhibit advanced aggregation features and unusual wetting power capacity [13][14][15] . Due to their distinctive quality, they are employed for several purposes, such as household things, cleaning, pharmacy, cosmetics, gene therapy, in micellar catalysis and so on [16][17][18][19][20][21] .…”

Removal of an Ethoxylated Alkylphenol by Adsorption on Zeolites and Photocatalysis with TiO2/Ag

“…The excellent colloidal properties of surfactants has also used in the purification, control and separation of substances of importance, [6] how non-metal nano-particles (NPs), and two-dimensional materials. Graphene oxide (GO) is a two-dimensional material with a hydrophobic carbon lattice functionalized with hydrophilic oxygen groups on the edges; its basal hydrophilic nature allows it to behave as a surfactant, stabilizing emulsions of oil in water [7].…”