Abstract
Foam stability is unfavorably influenced by crude oil and this situation has been a main obstacle for the foam injection application for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) (1, 2). The presence of additives to surfactant solution could improve foam stability (3, 4). In this work, effectiveness of the common ionic liquid (IL) and newly developed eutectic-based IL or known as Deep Eutectic solvent (DES) were determined to evaluate their use as co-surfactant in stabilizing foam in the presence of oil. The novelty of the new chemicals in EOR application is in its capability to enhance the surfactant performance in foam stability while being cheap, biodegradable and easy to produce for bulk application. Several formulation of IL/surfactant mass ratio were investigated based on bulk foam stability test in the presence of oil to find the optimum formulation. A fixed concentration of an in-house-surfactant, MFOMAX (M) was utilized. Core flood experiments were performed to evaluate mobility reduction factor (MRF) and incremental oil recovery. The overall results demonstrated that the addition of ILs in surfactant solution were found to improve foam stability. Increment in MRF value and additional oil recovery (AOR) were also reported.
Highlights
A constant surfactant concentration of 0.5 wt.% was prepared as a base case solution, whereas the additives concentrations were varied
The purpose of this study is to access the effectiveness of two groups of ionic liquid (IL), common ILs and eutectic-based ILs, as additive in improving surfactant performance on foam stabilization
Two types of ILs were investigated in this study. 1butyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethane sulfonate, IL4 represented as common IL and Choline Chloride - glycerol (1:2), IL11 represented as Deep Eutectic solvent (DES)
Summary
A constant surfactant concentration of 0.5 wt.% was prepared as a base case solution, whereas the additives concentrations were varied. The bulk foam stability test with oil using Foamscan instrument at 90°C was perfomed to find the best surfactant/IL formulation indicated with longer half-life time prior to core flood experiments under reservoir conditions. Three runs had been conducted where the base case experiment was only on M (the solution without additive). The purpose is to evaluate the additives performance to influence foam stability, increment in MRF and oil recovery. This experiment was performed at 90°C with a backpressure of 1800 psi at the end of the holder to simulate the formation pressure
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