A novel active amphiphilic polymer for enhancing heavy oil recovery: Synthesis, characterization and mechanism

Abstract

Amphiphilic polymers represent significant ability in emulsifying crude oil during the displacement, enabling effective control the oil/water interface mobility and reduction of heavy oil viscosity. Herein, an amphiphilic polymer, named PMC16, was copolymerization using by hydrophobic monomer C16DMAAC, along with acrylamide and acrylic acid as comonomers. The structure of PMC16 was identified by 1H NMR, and FT-IR. The potential of PMC16 for oil recovery enhancement was evaluated through assessments of fluid viscoelasticity, reduction in oil viscosity, wettability alternation and interfacial activity between heavy oil and PMC16. The results reveal that PMC16 showed well shear resistance due to the hydrophobic association between its molecular chains. In addition, the PMC16 can effectively decrease the viscosity of the oil phase through emulsification. The viscosity reduction achieved by PMC16 for heavy oil surpasses 95% under the condition of 60 °C, oil–water ratio of 3:7 and a concentration of 3000 mg/L. Additionally, PMC16 solution induces a shift in the wettability of solid surfaces towards water-wet characteristics, with the oil droplet contact angle reducing from 125° to 54°. Such wettability transformation proves advantageous for spontaneous imbibition, especially when considering capillary force as the driving mechanism. Furthermore, the results of oil displacement performance experiments substantiated that PMC16 contributed to a 17.9% increase in the recovery rate of heavy oil. The utilization of PMC16 holds significant theoretical importance in augmenting the recovery of heavy oil.