Effect of Environment-Friendly Non-Ionic Surfactant on Interfacial Tension Reduction and Wettability Alteration; Implications for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Omid Mosalman Haghighi, Ghasem Zargar, Abbas Khaksar Manshad, Muhammad Ali, Mohammad Ali Takassi, Jagar A. Ali and Alireza Keshavarz
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Omid Mosalman Haghighi: Department of Petroleum Engineering, Abadan Faculty of Petroleum Engineering, Petroleum University of Technology (PUT), Abadan, Iran
Ghasem Zargar: Department of Petroleum Engineering, Abadan Faculty of Petroleum Engineering, Petroleum University of Technology (PUT), Abadan, Iran
Abbas Khaksar Manshad: Department of Petroleum Engineering, Abadan Faculty of Petroleum Engineering, Petroleum University of Technology (PUT), Abadan, Iran
Muhammad Ali: School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup 6027, Australia
Mohammad Ali Takassi: Department of Petroleum Engineering, Abadan Faculty of Petroleum Engineering, Petroleum University of Technology (PUT), Abadan, Iran
Jagar A. Ali: Department of Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Soran University, Soran 44008, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
Alireza Keshavarz: School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup 6027, Australia

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: Production from mature oil reservoirs can be optimized by using the surfactant flooding technique. This can be achieved by reducing oil and water interfacial tension (IFT) and modifying wettability to hydrophilic conditions. In this study, a novel green non-ionic surfactant (dodecanoyl-glucosamine surfactant) was synthesized and used to modify the wettability of carbonate reservoirs to hydrophilic conditions as well as to decrease the IFT of hydrophobic oil–water systems. The synthesized non-ionic surfactant was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and chemical shift nuclear magnetic resonance (HNMR) analyses. Further pH, turbidity, density, and conductivity were investigated to measure the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of surfactant solutions. The result shows that this surfactant alters wettability from 148.93° to 65.54° and IFT from 30 to 14 dynes/cm. Core-flooding results have shown that oil recovery was increased from 40% (by water flooding) to 59% (by surfactant flooding). In addition, it is identified that this novel non-ionic surfactant can be used in CO 2 storage applications due to its ability to alter the hydrophobicity into hydrophilicity of the reservoir rocks.

Keywords: non-ionic surfactant; chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR); wettability; Core-flooding; interfacial tension (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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