Adsorption from flooding solutions in porous media: a study of interactions of surfactants and polymers with reservoir minerals. Final report

Technical Report · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:5743505

Somasundaran, P; Gryte, C C

The loss of surfactants from systems relevent to micellar flooding, including the influence of oils, alcohols and polymers, was investigated. Our work has demonstrated the critical role of rock mineralogy in determining the type and extent of surfactant loss. The presence of as little as 1% gypsum in samples of kaolinite, silica and alumina caused decylbenzene sulfonate depletion to shift from adsorption-controlled to precipitation-controlled. However, in gypsum-magnesite mixtures, the influence of gypsum was greatly reduced because calcium activity was controlled by carbonate equilibria. The precipitation phenomena has been studied extensively, and a thermodynamic model developed. It has been shown that above the CMC, redissolution of the precipitate occurs due to adsorption of precipitating ions on micelles, which reduces its activity in the bulk. Modifications to surfactant structure were found to greatly enhance salt tolerance. Through addition of ethoxy groups to alkylbenzenesulfonates, salt tolerance can be improved by more than one order of magnitude for Na/sup +/ and three orders of magnitude for Ca/sup 2 +/. Future work will focus on such surfactants as a means to minimize surfactant loss in micellar flooding. 29 figs.

• Research Organization: Columbia Univ., New York (USA). School of Engineering and Applied Science
• DOE Contract Number: AC19-79BC10082
• OSTI ID: 5743505
• Report Number(s): DOE/BC/10082-27; ON: DE85000130
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
400301 -- Organic Chemistry-- Chemical & Physicochemical Properties-- (-1987)
ADSORPTION
ADSORPTION ISOTHERMS
ALKALINE EARTH METAL COMPOUNDS
ALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
ALUMINIUM SILICATES
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CALCITE
CALCIUM CARBONATES
CALCIUM COMPOUNDS
CALCIUM SULFATES
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBONATE MINERALS
CARBONATES
CHALCOGENIDES
DATA
DESORPTION
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
ESTERS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLUID INJECTION
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
GYPSUM
INFORMATION
ISOTHERM
KAOLINITE
LOSSES
MATERIALS
MEDIUM TEMPERATURE
MICROEMULSION FLOODING
MINERALOGY
MINERALS
MISCIBLE-PHASE DISPLACEMENT
NUMERICAL DATA
OIL WELLS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC SULFUR COMPOUNDS
OXIDE MINERALS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PETROLEUM
PH VALUE
POROUS MATERIALS
PRECIPITATION
QUARTZ
RECOVERY
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
RESERVOIR ROCK
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SILICATE MINERALS
SILICATES
SILICON COMPOUNDS
SILICON OXIDES
SORPTION
SORPTIVE PROPERTIES
SULFATE MINERALS
SULFATES
SULFONIC ACID ESTERS
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SURFACE PROPERTIES
SURFACTANTS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
WELLS