SURFACTANT
Nama: Rachel Putri Sammer Panjaitan
NIM: 071001500112
Program Studi Teknik Perminyakan
Fakultas Teknologi Kebumian dan Energi
Universitas Trisakti
Jakarta
2017
Table of Content
Page
Abstract 1
Introduction 2
Literature
Methodology
Results & Discussion
Conclusion
References
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
LITERATURE
Initial selection of surfactants is based upon desirable surfactant structure.
Phase behavior screening helps to quickly identify favorable surfactant formulations.
Salinity scans are conducted to observe equilibration times, micro-emulsion viscosity,
oil and water solubilization ratios and interfacial tension. Co-surfactants and cp-
solvents are included to minimize gels, liquid crystals and macro-emulsions and to
promote rapid equilibration to low-viscosity micro-emulsions.
It is well known that the primary requirement needed to mobilize residual oil
saturation is a sufficiently low interfacial tension (IFT) to give a capillary number
large enough to overcome the capillary forces and allow the oil to flow. Low IFT can
be obtained with a wide variety of surfactants, but the best surfactants depends on the
crude oil and reservoir conditions and must also satisfy several other stringent
requirements. There is a strong and well-established relationship between the micro-
emulsion phase behavior and IFT. This relationship can be used to great advantages
to rapidly screen surfactants and predict which ones will likely perform best in the
more difficult and expensive core floods
Winsor described surfactant/oil/water micro-emulsion as type I (oil in water),
type II (water in oil), or type III (bicontinuous oil and water in a third phase known as
the middle phase micro-emulsion). The type III or middle phase micro-emulsion
exhibit the lowest IFT. For anionic surfactant, increasing
Recent advances including the development of new synthetic surfactants and
increased understanding of the structure performance relationship of surfactants have
made it possible to rapidly identify promising high-performance surfactants for EOR.
The process involves laboratory screening using knowledge of the molecular
structure and cost of the surfactants as well as pertinent reservoir-specific information
(in example temperature, salinity, and crude oil properties). The surfactant selection
process starts with the screening of surfactants by phase behavior experiments and
progresses to core floods with formulations that may incorporate co-surfactants, co-
solvents, alkali, polymers and electrolytes as well.
While IFT in the range of interest can be measured by the spinning drop
method, using the Huh equation to calculate it from phase behavior data affords
several significant advantages, these include the comparative ease and speed with
which phase behavior experiments can be performed as well as the opportunity for
easily taking repeated measurements over time. Using phase behavior to screen
surfactants has other very significant advantages over IFT. It is easy to make
qualitative observations of how fluid the interfaces are in the pipettes, how viscous
the phases are, and how fast the emulsions equilibrate to micro-emulsions. These
phenomena are as important to the selection of a suitable surfactant as IFT is. Highly
viscous phases will not easily transport under low pressure gradients and will perform
poorly in the reservoir where the pressure gradient is often on the order of 1 psi/ft or
less.
METHODOLOGY
Huh developed a theoretical relationship between the oil and water
solubilization ratios (σ) and IFT (γ)
𝑐
𝛾=
𝜎2
where C is about 0.3 dynes/cm for typical crude oils and surfactants used for EOR. A
very large number of papers published since 1979 have shown the Huh equation
accurately models the IFT between equilibrium micro-emulsions and oil or water for
numerous combinations of surfactants and crude oils over a wide range of
concentration, salinity, temperature and other conditions typical of oil reservoirs.
RESULTS & DISCUSSION
For the first step, we select surfactants for testing. It started with TDA in part
because it is the lowest cost commodity alcohol suitable for making synthetic
surfactants with a sufficiently high carbon number for EOR of light crude oils.
Table 1 Candidate Surfactants Tested for EOR
The second step is phase behavior screening. Experiments were first performed to
measure the phase behavior of surfactant-oil-water mixtures as a function of
electrolyte concentration. Phase behavior of surfactant/co-surfactant/co-solvent
formulations was evaluated using the following mostly qualitative criteria:
How fast the emulsions break after gentle mixing and form a micro-emulsion
in equilibrium with oil and/or brine and the absence of macro-emulsions or
gels, particularly at and below optimum salinity
High solubilization ratio at optimum salinity and hence low IFT. A
solubilization ratio of 10 or greater corresponds to an IFT on the order of
0.003 dynes/cm or less
Micro-emulsion with low viscosity and the absence of high viscosity gels or
other viscous phases, or rigid fluid interfaces, or interfaces with persistent,
viscous macro-emulsions next to them
Aqueous stability of surfactant/polymer solutions at required injection salinity
(may be different from optimum salinity)
Preliminary phase behavior screening with the surfactants listed in table 1 was
performed with pure hydrocarbons. Some of the advantages of using pure
hydrocarbons for initial screening include clarity of interfaces and other observations
as well as the ability to compare the results with a large body of surfactant data with
the same pure hydrocarbons. The C16-17-(PO)7-SO4 exhibited the most promising
performance with both pure hydrocarbons and the West Texas crude oil. Both C20-
24AOS and C15-18IOS improved the performance of the C16-17-(PO)7-SO4 with respect
to the absence of gels and macro-emulsions.
The third phase is co-surfactant selection. As part of the initial screening
process, a comparison was made of the performance of the C15-18IOS and C20-24AOS
co-surfactants with the C16-17-(PO)7-SO4 primary surfactant. Phase behavior data for
both formulations are presented in figure 1 and 2. Figure 3 and 4 show how the two
formulations approached equilibrium for near-optimum salinity. The C15-18IOS co-
surfactant had slightly more favorable solubilization ratios as well as a faster
approach to equilibrium and fewer tendencies to form viscous phase, so it is a better
co-surfactant under these conditions.
Figure 1 Phase Behavior of C20-24AOS Figure 2 Phase Behavior of C15-18IOS
Figure 1 Equilibrium of C20-24AOS Figure 2 Equilibrium of C15-18IOS
The next step is to determine co-solvent, surfactant/co-solvent ratio, and total
surfactant concentration. Both sec-butanol (SBA) and isopropanol (IPA) were
evaluated as co-solvents, and SBA proved superior. Increasing alcohol co-solvent
concentration speeds up equilibration, reduces the viscosity and helps break macro-
emulsions, but invariably lowers the solubilization ratio at optimum salinity. Thus, a
compromise must be made between maximum solubilization ratio (low IFT) and low
viscosity and the other critical factors needed for good transport under low pressure
gradients in oil reservoirs.
After that, we do polymer screening. Including polymer in a surfactant slug is
essential for maintaining a favorable mobility ratio since the surfactant causes the
water relative permeability to increase. This increase must be counter balanced by
decreasing the aqueous mobility with polymer. Without polymer in the surfactant
slug, the surfactant will finger into the oil bank and the reservoir sweep will be very
poor. Furthermore, the polymer in both the slug and drive helps mitigate the effects of
permeability variation and improve the overall sweep efficiency in the reservoir. Core
floods show some but not all of the benefits of adding polymer, so acceptable results
in a core flood without polymer can be misleading with respect to performance in the
field.
The last step is core flooding experiments. A small number of core floods
were performed as validation experiments for promising surfactants identified during
phase behavior screening.
CONCLUSIONS
The conclusions that we can get from this paper are:
1. Surfactant structures with branched hydrophobes are the most suitable for
EOR because micro-emulsions made from these surfactants show little
tendency to form viscous phases such as gels and liquid crystals that result in
high surfactant retention.
REFERENCES
Mechanism that might be important in surfactant flooding of an oil field are:
1. Micro-scale mechanisms
a. Reduced residual oil saturation, Sor
b. Altered relative permeability
2. Macro-scale mechanism
a. Capillary trapping due to the presence of heterogeneities
b. Segregated flow due to gravity
3. Wettability alteration
The micro-scale mechanism as well as the wettability alteration would be natural
targets for experimental investigations. The reduction in Sor is known to be a main
mechanism in surfactant flooding of water wet formations. The potential for
surfactant flooding at water-wet conditions is typically represented by a measured
capillary desaturation curve (CDC), which is a plot of Sor versus the capillary
number, Nc. It might be more important that an IOR method like surfactant flooding
can accelerate the oil production and reach an already low Sor than an actual reduction
in Sor itself.
It is well known that the presence of heterogeneities much smaller than the typical
field model grid block size may have significant influence on the reservoir flow and
lead to local capillary entrapment.