Selection Method of Surfactants for Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

Alternative energy sources have not yet presented suitable to meet the energy demand of the world; therefore crude oil will play furthermore an essential role in the energy consumption in the future. EOR is a challenging field for several scientific disciplines. The number of patents highlights the importance of this area. Most of the publications label that the target of the chemical processes is the reduction of IFT between the displacing liquid and oil phase. Based on the results in the last two decades the surfactants and flow modifier type polymers have shown more potential for a higher efficiency of the EOR than in any other methods. The aim of this work was to develop different surfactant testing methods that are capable to characterize the most important surfactant properties separately and to evaluate their combined or complementary effects. There was no correlation between the specific characteristics. But the weak correlation was detected by using the CE complex evaluation method. Further improvements could contribute significantly to improve the selectivity of the new experimental non-ionic surfactants for EOR applications.