Development of a New Polymeric Surfactant for Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

This work presents a new alkaline–surfactant (AS) flooding formulation that replaces and improves the traditional alkaline–surfactant–polymer (ASP) flooding slug. With the design of a cost-effective AS slug, a new series of polymeric surfactants was produced based on agriculture material. In this article, the polymeric surfactant was produced by a graft polymerization process using several surfactant-to-acrylamide ratios. This surfactant was designed to graft the sulfonated group to the polymer backbone as one component system for interfacial tension (IFT) reduction and viscosity control. The performance of the resultant surfactants was studied in the presence and absence of sodium carbonate as an alkaline agent at reservoir temperature of 90°C. The feasibility of applying the AS formula was based on IFT measurement between crude oil and AS solution and viscosity tests. As a result, the ratio of 1:0.5 (S:A) was selected as the optimum ratio for IFT reduction and viscosity control. A combination of alkali and surfactant with a concentration of 0.8 and 0.4% was found to significantly reduce the IFT while maintaining the desired viscosity of the solution.