Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
Effects of Surfactant Blend Formulation on Crude Oil-Brine Interaction and Wettability: An Experimental Study
Muhammad Khan Memon, Khaled Abdalla Elraies and Muhannad Talib Shuker
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar 31750 Tronoh Perak Darul Ridzwan, Malaysia
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2016 5:537-543
Received: September 7, 2015 | Accepted: September 25, 2015 | Published: March 05, 2016
Abstract
Interfacial tension of reservoir fluids and wettability are important parameters in the process of enhanced oil recovery. These two parameters affect the fluid distribution within reservoir formation. The fluids distribution in the reservoir strongly affects the flow behavior and residual oil recovery. Interfacial tension plays an important role due to its relationship between foam surface energy and foam stability. The wettability by contact angle measurement provides a method for determining fluid interaction and is considered as a basic research than practical tool for analysis of reservoir formation. The main objective of this research study is to determine the effects of interfacial tension and wettability on foam surfactant blend formulations, brine and crude oil. Anionic and nonionic surfactant blend were selected. The interfacial tension test was performed at 85oC. Dynamic interfacial tension of blended surfactant formulations with Malaysian crude oil were measured in fixed brine salinity. The interfacial tension values of tested surfactant blends were found lower than the interfacial tension between brine and crude oil. Interracial tension between crude oil and foam forming surfactant was reduced by using different concentration of surfactant blend. Good values were obtained by the measurement of contact angle between solid and three foam surfactant blend formulations. The interfacial tension and contact angle experimental studies revealed that, the blend of Alpha Olefin Sulfonate and Sodium Dodecyl Sulfonate with Octylphenol Ethylene Oxide play an important role in reducing the interfacial tension at crude oil-brine interface. The reduced interfacial tension and more wetting surface effects indicated that, these foam surfactant formulations are of great importance in the process of residual oil recovery.
Keywords:
Foam, interfacial tension, surfactants, residual oil recovery, wettability,
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Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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