Performance and thermal decomposition analysis of foaming agent NPL-10 for use in heavy oil recovery by steam injection

Abstract

Abstract Foaming agents, despite holding potential in steam injection technology for heavy oil recovery, are still poorly investigated. In this work, we analyzed the performance of the foaming agent NPL-10 in terms of foam height and half-life under various conditions of temperature, pH, salinity, and oil content by orthogonal experiments. The best conditions of use for NPL-10 among those tested are T=220°C, pH 7, salinity 10000 mg·L–1 and oil content 10 g·L–1. Thermal decomposition of NPL-10 was also studied by thermogravimetric and differential thermal analyses. NPL-10 decomposes above 220°C, and decomposition is a two-step process. The kinetic triplet (activation energy, kinetic function and pre-exponential factor) and the corresponding rate law were calculated for each step. Steps 1 and 2 follow kinetics of different order (n = 2 and ½, respectively). These findings provide some criteria for the selection of foaming agents for oil recovery by steam injection.