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

Authors

Asyimah Asri Department of Petroleum Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Rashidah M. Pilus Department of Petroleum Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Ahmad Kamal Idris Department of Petroleum Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, 81310, Johor, Malaysia
Zakaria Man Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Ismail Mohd Saaid Department of Petroleum Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Perak, Malaysia
Abdelazim Abbas Ahmed Department of Petroleum Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Perak, Malaysia

Keywords:

Surfactant, Ionic Liquid, Additive, Foam Stability, EOR

Abstract

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.

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