Development of Cost Effective Surfactants from Local Materials for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

Surfactants are used to lower surface/interfacial tension in crude oil reservoir, and hence increase oil mobility. Niger Delta Oilfields are matured and may be said to be characterized with heavy hydrocarbons. The heaviness is a result of years of associated gas flaring; leaving behind only oil. It is imperative to inject surfactants to mobilize oil column through flooding. Unique local raw materials have been identified and developed to form Ibile Surfacs. Ibile Surfacs is biodegradable, easy to formulate and readily available as oilfield chemicals. Three branded market samples of surfactants were collected for comparative studies, with the Ibile Surfacs. Branded market samples obtained are Tween 80, Lauryl Sulphate, and Teepol. Some of the test conducted for the samples are stability under similar temperature values, environmental biodegradability, ability to foam and sustain foaminess with saline water and hard water respectively. The result obtained for biodegradability shows that, the Ibile Surfac maintain reasonable leads ahead of Lauryl Sulphate and Teepol and similar characteristics with Tween 80. Results obtained for stability under the same temperature values, reflected equal trends for Tween 80, Lauryl Sulphate, and Teepol with Ibile Surfacs showing a lead. Similarly, a table of results tabulated for foamability and foaminess sustainability gave strong indications that Ibile Surfacs foamed continuously in hard water. Whereas, Tween 80, Lauryl Sulphate, and Teepol broke down at moderates water hardness. It can be safely stated that, Ibile Surfacs is better than trio of sampled market brands, and can be use to replace either Tween 80 or Lauryl Sulphate, and/or Teepol.

The Effect of Anionic and Nonionic Co-Surfactant for Improving Solubility of Polyoxy-Based Surfactant for Chemical Flooding

“…Teepol, merpol, tergitol, and SDS are market brand surfactant that usually is used for household applications, such as detergent, personal care, cleanings and food processing (Adeniyi et al 2015). The study of utilizing brand market surfactant for surfactant fl ooding has been reported on recently.…”

Exploring the Potential Application of Palm Methyl Ester Sulfonate as an Interfacial Tension Reducing Surfactant for Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery

“…Through this interaction, the surfactant molecule decreases the interfacial tension of the crude oil thereby increasing crude oil mobility and oil recovery [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Though various conventional surfactants are proven to provide effective results with respect to their interaction with the crude oil in reservoirs for incremental oil recovery [16][17][18][19][20][21][22], the primary problem associated with this method is the environmental issue encountered during post implementation stage. As most of the conventional surfactants used in this method are anionic and derived from petrochemicals, these chemicals possess a molecular structure that can harm the aquatic organisms.…”