Amphiphilic petroleum recovery systems

Calorimetric Phase Studies of Model Amphiphilic Petroleum Recovery Systems... 

Extensive experimental work showed that a three-phase system with type III phase behavior was attained whenever a certain relationship, termed the correlation for optimum formulation, was satisfied. The term optimum came from the fact that this formulation was also associated with the lowest possible interfacial tension value in the scan, which led to the most reduction in capillary forces and maximum oil recovery. It is worth mentioning that type III sj tems are now recognized as corresponding to the bicontinuous microemulsions that exhibit the highest solubilization of oil and water per unit weight of amphiphile and thus also the optimum situation whenever the solubilizing ability is sought after, which is probably the most important application of microemulsions outside the petroleum industry. 

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