Surface activity and thermodynamic properties of some green surfactants from wastes in formation water at reservoir conditions

Abstract

In this work an attention has been paid to prepare some anionic and nonionic surfactants based on aliphatic and aromatic moieties to evaluate their application in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The aliphatic surfactants derived from Jatropha and waste cooking oil but the aromatics derived from alkyl benzene sulfonic acid. The nonionic surfactants were prepared by tans esterification of acids with different types of poly ethylene glycols and anionic surfactants prepared by saponification. The designated formula of the aromatic surfactants was RC₆H₄SO₃ (en)_x OH and RΦSO₃Na where aliphatic surfactants designated as RCOO(en)_n OH and RCOONa. The structures of these surfactants were confirmed by FT-IR. The surface activity and thermodynamic properties for three surfactants groups have been investigated. The Surface and interfacial tension were measured in high salinity formation water (200,000ppm) at different temperatures (25, 35, 45 and 55 °C) and 1000 psi. From surface tension measurements, CMC, Π_cmc, Γ_max, A_min, Pc₂₀ were calculated. The thermodynamic parameters of micellization and adsorption were also calculated. The data discussed on the basis of structural effect. The EHJ23 (RCOO(en)₂₃OH) gave a high value of structural effect(22.18 KJmol⁻¹) which met the most negative value of ΔG_ads (-37.61 KJmol⁻¹) . The results explained that the (ΔG_ads) negatives values were more than the values of (ΔΔ_Gmic), which means that surfactants prefer to adsorb at interface before forming micelles. These surfactants exhibited ultra-low interfacial tension (IFT) at 55 °C and 1000 psi between 8 × 10⁻² to 2 × 10⁻⁴ mNm⁻¹ which gave indication that, these surfactants can be used in EOR applications.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Surface tension
• interfacial tension
• thermodynamic
• adsorption mechanism
• reservoirs conditions

Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge Egyptian Academy of scientific research and Technology (ASRT) for sharing project 56/2015(Construction of semi pilot plant for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) by un conventional methods (2015-2018) with Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute (EPRI). The authors should also thank all members of EPRI-EOR/IOR.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully thank the Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute for its support.