Effect of Oil Type on Solubilization by Amphiphiles

Abstract

Summary Systems optimized for micellar flooding are not all equivalent in terms of solubilization, interfacial tensions (IFT's), and oil recovery efficiency. The basic conditions that promote high solubilization into microemulsions, a property correlated to the values of IFT's, were established in a previous paper. Changes in oil type, for example, have to be compensated for by adjustment of the lipophile of the surfactant; however, this is not always sufficient to guarantee a high solubilization. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence on solubilization of the relationship between the oil type to be solubilized and the surfactant lipophile. We found that this relationship is a determining factor for solubilization at a given temperature and salinity. For example, we observed that for the alkane series, solubilization is not affected by the alkane carbon number (ACN), provided that the compensation be achieved by adjustment of the surfactant lipophile length. For other oils or mixture of oils, like crudes, however, this is not necessarily the case; the solubilization may be found to be more or less different from that of alkanes, depending on the structure of the surfactant lipophile. A particularly interesting case of oil mixtures is mixtures of hydrocarbons and methane (under pressure), because this gas is often dissolved in substantial amounts in live crudes. The incidence of the presence of methane is shown to be a function of the amount of gas dissolved and of the nature of the dissolving hydrocarbon. An interpretation of the results is proposed, based on the oil/lipophile, oil/oil, and lipophile/lipophile interaction energies, which are involved in Winsor's R-theory.