Ionic Liquid and Eutectic-Based Ionic Liquid as Novel Additives for Foam Stabilization in Porous Media Hydrocarbon-Rich Environment Article Swipe

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Pulmonary surfactant Enhanced oil recovery Surface tension Materials science Chemical engineering Eutectic system Hydrocarbon Ionic liquid Chromatography Porosity Porous medium Chemistry Composite material Organic chemistry Thermodynamics Alloy Engineering Physics Catalysis

Asyimah Asri , Rashidah M. Pilus , Ahmad Kamal Idris , Zakaria Man , Ismail Mohd Saaid , Abdelazim Abbas Ahmed ·

YOU? · · 2020 · Open Access · · OA: W3096246405

Further maintain of foam stability in foam flooding process is a major challenge for oil industry. In this work, capability of the common ionic liquid (IL) and newly developed eutectic-based IL or widely known as Deep Eutectic solvent (DES) were evaluated to assess 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 ability to improve the surfactant performance in foam stability while being cheap, biodegradable and easy to produce for bulk application. The optimum amount of eutectic- and imidazolium-based ILs used as additives to a fixed concentration of an in-house-surfactant, MFOMAX (M) in the presence of oil was determined. The physicochemical properties measurement of the mixtures and foam stability test in a bulk column test were conducted. Core flood experiments were conducted to estimate gas breakthrough, mobility reduction factor (MRF) and incremental oil recovery. The addition of ILs in surfactant solution were found to enhance foam stability. Furthermore, it was found that addition of additives increased the interfacial tension of M/IL solution against crude oil which improved foam stability. However, foam stability increased with decreased surface tension of M/IL solution against N2 gas. The results in core flooding experiments exhibit the advantages of ILs at their optimum formulation in delaying the gas breakthrough time and increment in MRF value. The additional oil recovery was slightly higher with the addition of additives in surfactant solution. The recommended optimum surfactant/IL mass ratio to obtain the highest bulk foam stability of imidazolium-based ILs and eutectic-based ILs is at 90:10 and 80:20, respectively. The common IL requires lower concentration as compared to eutectic-based IL in order to perform well which is encouraging as common ILs are normally more expensive.