Interface behaviors of two heavy oil activators and their influences on the treatment of oilfield produced fluid

Abstract

ABSTRACT The heavy oil activator is one kind of amphiphilic polymers used for oil displacement and its potential application in the field of enhanced heavy oil recovery has attracted much attention in offshore oilfield in China. Before the large-scale application, the study of the effect of heavy oil activator on the treatment of produced fluid is meaningful. In this paper, the influences of two activators (P1 and P2, P1 had the polyether and alkyl chain mixed hydrophobic group, while the hydrophobic monomer in P2 only had the alkyl chain hydrophobic group) on the stability and treatment of W/O and O/W emulsions were investigated, respectively. Both P1 and P2 were helpful for the W/O emulsion demulsification, while the influence of P1 was less than that of P2. On the other hand, both P1 and P2 were not beneficial for the O/W treatment, while the influence of P1 was greater than that of P2. In addition, the interfacial behavior of the activators was systematically studied by means of surface/interfacial tensiometer, dual-polarization interferometry test and optical tweezers to explain the corresponding influences.