Gas/water foams stabilized with a newly developed anionic surfactant for gas mobility control applications

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO 2) flooding is one of the most globally used EOR processes to enhance oil recovery. However, the low gas viscosity and density result in gas channeling and gravity override which lead to poor sweep efficiency. Foam application for mobility control is a promising technology to increase the gas viscosity, lower the mobility and improve the sweep efficiency in the reservoir. Foam is generated in the reservoir by co-injection of surfactant solutions and gas. Although there are many surfactants that can be used for such purpose, their performance with supercritical CO 2 (ScCO 2) is weak causing poor or loss of mobility control. This experimental study evaluates a newly developed surfactant (CNF) that was introduced for ScCO 2 mobility control in comparison with a common foaming agent, anionic alpha olefin sulfonate (AOS) surfactant. Experimental work was divided into three stages: foam static tests, interfacial tension measurements, and foam dynamic tests. Both surfactants were investigated at different conditions. In general, results show that both surfactants are good foaming agents to reduce the mobility of ScCO 2 with better performance of CNF surfactant. Shaking tests in the presence of crude oil show that the foam life for CNF extends to more than 24 h but less than that for AOS. Moreover, CNF features lower critical micelle concentration (CMC), higher adsorption, and smaller area/molecule at the liquid-air interface. Furthermore, entering, spreading, and bridging coefficients indicate that CNF surfactant produces very stable foam with light crude oil in both deionized and saline water, whereas AOS was stable only in deionized water. At all conditions for mobility reduction evaluation, CNF exhibits stronger flow resistance, higher foam viscosity, and higher mobility reduction factor than that of AOS surfactant. In addition, CNF and ScCO 2 simultaneous injection produced 8.83% higher oil recovery than that of the baseline experiment and 7.87% higher than that of AOS. Pressure drop profiles for foam flooding using CNF was slightly higher than that of AOS indicating that CNF is better in terms of foam-oil tolerance which resulted in higher oil recovery.

Soy protein isolate: an overview on foaming properties and air–liquid interface

“…Studies have shown that qualified gas/water foams stabilised with anew formed anionic surfactant for gas mobility control applications using the said method (Almobarky et al ., 2020). In general, the authors reported that both surfactants were good foaming agents and reduced the mobility of supercritical CO 2 .…”

Novel Foam Stabilized by Fatty Amine Polyether Carboxylate and AOS Binary Blend for Enhanced Oil Recovery

“…However, the application of anionic surfactants is limited in reservoirs with high salinity and hardness because of their poor brine solubility. For AOS, when the concentration of sodium chloride goes up from 0 to 10 000 mg/L, the half-life of foam is reduced by nearly 30% . When the brine contains multivalent metal ions, such as calcium, precipitation of anionic surfactants is further exacerbated, and foaming properties are lost.…”

Impact of tailored water chemistry aqueous ions on foam stability enhancement

“…Foam generation generally increases with surfactant concentration up to the critical micelle concentration (CMC) above which surfactant concentration has little impact (Chiang et al 1980). Several parameters could impact foam generation and stabilization including: surfactant type and concentration, temperature, pressure, gas saturation, water salinity and chemistry, presence of crude oil, rock-fluid interactions, and capillary forces (Figdore 1982;Al-Hashim et al 1988;Mannhardt et al 1993;AlYousef et al 2020a, b;Almobarky et al 2020;Wang et al 2018, Ranjan et al 2020). Foams are typically described in terms of their foamability and stability.…”

“…Foam can deliver a more favorable mobility ratio by increasing the gas apparent viscosity and reducing its relative permeability (Almajid and Kovscek 2020;AlYousef et al 2020a, b). However, the mobility of foam is highly vulnerable at harsh temperature, pressure, and salinity conditions (Grigg et al 2004;Almajid and Kovscek 2016;Almobarky et al 2020;Fuseni et al 2018).…”