Surfactant enhanced product recovery

The formation of ordered two- and three-dimensional microstructuies in dispersions and in liquid systems has an influence on a broad range of products and processes. For example, microcapsules, vesicles, and liposomes can be used for controlled drug dehvery, for the contaimnent of inks and adhesives, and for the isolation of toxic wastes. In addition, surfactants continue to be important for enhanced oil recovery, ore beneficiation, and lubrication. Ceramic processing and sol-gel techniques for the fabrication of amorphous or ordered materials with special properties involve a rich variety of colloidal phenomena, ranging from the production of monodispersed particles with controlled surface chemistry to the thermodynamics and dynamics of formation of aggregates and microciystallites. 

B. Bubela. In situ biological production of surfactants for enhanced oil recovery. Australia Dep Resources Energy End of Grant Rep 151, March 1983. 

Oil-field chemistry has undergone major changes since the publication of earlier books on this subject Enhanced oil recovery research has shifted from processes in which surfactants and polymers are the primary promoters of increased oil production to processes in which surfactants are additives to improve the incremental oil recovery provided by steam and miscible gas injection fluids. Improved and more cost-effective cross-linked polymer systems have resulted from a better understanding of chemical cross-links in polysaccharides and of the rheological behavior of cross-linked fluids. The thrust of completion and hydraulic fracturing chemical research has shifted somewhat from systems designed for ever deeper, hotter formations to chemicals, particularly polymers, that exhibit improved cost effectiveness at more moderate reservoir conditions. 

Chemicals of various types are used in every stage of drilling, completing, and producing oil and gas wells. This review describes these chemicals, why they are used, and recent developments. These chemicals include common inorganic salts, transition metal compounds, common organic chemicals and solvents, water-soluble and oil-soluble polymers, and surfactants. As existing fields become depleted, use of chemistry to maintain production via well stimulation, more efficient secondary recovery operations, and enhanced oil recovery become ever more important. 

Recent research and field tests have focused on the use of relatively low concentrations or volumes of chemicals as additives to other oil recovery processes. Of particular interest is the use of surfactants as CO (184) and steam mobility control agents (foam). Also combinations of older EOR processes such as surfactant enhanced alkaline flooding and alkaline-surfactant-polymer flooding have been the subjects of recent interest. Older technologies polymer flooding (185,186) and micellar flooding (187-189) have been the subject of recent reviews. In 1988 84 commercial products polymers, surfactants, and other additives, were listed as being marketed by 19 companies for various enhanced oil recovery applications (190). 

Large amounts of water and oil can be admixed in microemulsions which find wide application in household and pharmaceutical products and have potential for enhanced oil recovery (Mackay, 1981 Bellocq et al., 1984). Microemulsions have been reported to form in the absence of surfactant over a very limited range of concentration, but there is a question as to the nature of these dispersions (Barden and Holt, 1979). 

Mobility control, issues in, 18 626 Mobility control agents polyacrylamides as, 18 625 in polymer flooding, 18 622 Mobility control surfactants, in enhanced oil recovery, 18 625-628 Mobilizable vectors, for genetic manipulation, 12 471 Mobilization, of ascorbic acid, 25 771 Modacryhc fibers, 9 192 11 188, 189, 190 dyesite content of, 11 195 flame resistance of, 11 214 flammability of, 11 194 pigmented, 11 213 U.S. production of, 11 220t Mode conversion phenomenon, 17 422 Model agreements, 24 373-374 Model-based methods, for reliability, 26 1044... 

One of the major focuses of the in situ use of surfactants is to accelerate the removal or degradation of free-phase products (DNAPL or oil globules) as variations of technologies used in the oil industry for enhanced tertiary oil recovery as described by Hill et al. (1973)- Such in situ remediation efforts often fail, however, primarily because of differences in the goals and expectations of the applications. For example, the enhanced oil recovery industry is often satisfied with > 30% enhanced removal whereas the remediation industry often strives for >99% removal in order to meet remedial guidelines. Unfortunately, removal of about 50% of the free product (i.e., DNAPL) at a PAH-contaminated site appears to represent the full extent of practical field expectations. 

Sharma, M.K. Surfactants in Enhanced Petroleum Recovery Processes An Overview in Particle Technology and Surface Phenomena in Minerals and Petroleum Production, Sharma, M.K. Sharma, G.D. (Eds.), Plenum Press New York, 1991, pp. 199-222. 

Foam exhibits higher apparent viscosity and lower mobility within permeable media than do its separate constituents.(1-3) This lower mobility can be attained by the presence of less than 0.1% surfactant in the aqueous fluid being injected.(4) The foaming properties of surfactants and other properties relevant to surfactant performance in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes are dependent upon surfactant chemical structure. Alcohol ethoxylates and alcohol ethoxylate derivatives were chosen to study techniques of relating surfactant performance parameters to chemical structure. These classes of surfactants have been evaluated as mobility control agents in laboratory studies (see references 5 and 6 and references therein). One member of this class of surfactants has been used in three field trials.(7-9) These particular surfactants have well defined structures and chemical structure variables can be assigned numerical values. Commercial products can be manufactured in relatively high purity. 

Surfactants are widely used for a variety of reasons, including surface wetting agents, detergents, emulsifiers, lubricants, gasoline additives, and enhanced oil-recovery agents. The type of surfactants selected for a particular application often depends on the chemical and physical properties required and on economics or other considerations such as environmental concerns. To meet these requirements, a typical surfactant formulation may contain blends of a variety of commercial products, which could include ionic and nonionic ethoxylated surfactants, alkylsulfonates, and alkylaryl-sulfonates, and petroleum sulfonates. 

Typical yields for complexes using HF and solid-bed alkylation routes are shown in Table 1. This table illustrates that the yields for the two routes are similar. For constant production of LAB, paraffin use is approximately equal for both the routes. The HAB byproduct stream consists of heavy alkylate (discussed in more detail in later sections). The HAB by-product is formed in both routes and depending on the properties, may be used in applications, such as heat transfer fluids, or as enhanced oil recovery surfactants in a sulfonated form. Both routes also produce some light products in the form of off-gas and cracked product from the dehydrogenation unit. The solid-bed alkylation route also produces an aromatic by-product stream (PEP Extract in Table 1), which consists of aromatics produced in the dehydrogenation unit. While aromatics removal is possible for the HF route, it is typically not practiced. Instead, the HF route has an acid regenerator bottoms stream, which consists of by-products extracted from purification of the HF acid. Both of these by-products are typically recovered for fuel value. In the table Case-1 represents an LAB complex that includes the Pacol , DeFine , PEP, and Detal processes all licensed by UOP LLC and hereafter referred to as Pacol/DeFine/PEP/Detal complex. Case-2 represents the Pacol, DeFine, and UOP HF detergent alkylation processes, all licensed by UOP LLC and hereafter referred to as Pacol/ DeFine/HF Alky complex. ... 

Akstinat, M.H., 1981. Surfactants for EOR process in high-saUnity systems product selection and evaluation. In Payers, F.J. (Ed.), Enhanced Oil Recovery. Elsevier, pp. 43-62. 

Other petroleum applications such as emulsion breaking, particularly for crude oil dehydration, are of first importance. A by-product of enhanced oil recovery was a better understanding of the relationship between the phase behavior of surfactant-oil-water systems and the properties of the corresponding macroemulsions [111-118]. 

Microemulsions and most surfactants in dilute solutions and dispersions self-assemble into a variety of microstructures spherical or wormlike micelles, swollen micelles, vesicles, and liposomes. Such systems are of biological and technological importance, e.g., in detergency, drug delivery, catalysis, enhanced oil recovery, flammability control, and nanoscale particle production. The macroscopic properties—rheology, surface tension, and conductivity—of these systems depend on their microstructure. As these microstructures are small (1-1000 nm) and sometimes several microstructures can coexist in the same solution, it is difficult to determine their structure. Conventional techniques like radiation scattering, although useful, provide only indirect evidence of microstructures, and the structures deduced are model-dependent. 

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