A New Type of Surfactant for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

Most naturally fractured reservoir rocks are mixed to oil wet and do not imbibe the injected water, which translates into low-efficiency waterflood recovery. To enhance the spontaneous imbibition process, a low concentration of surfactants is dissolved into the injected water to induce wettability alteration of the reservoir rock by changing the wettability of the rock toward a more water-wet state. Zizyphus spina-christi leaves, which are grown in the Middle East, produce a special surfactant called saponin. This surfactant can be used for chemical flooding in Iranian oil fields due to its low cost and availability. Saponin was extracted from leaves using a spray-drying method and the interfacial tension (IFT) between saponin–water–oil was determined. For interfacial tension measurements the pendant drop method was used. A typical pendant drop apparatus is presented in this article. The algorithms used to infer interfacial tension from the geometrical profile of the pendant drop are described in detail; in particular, a new method for evaluation of the value of the radius at the apex of the drop, necessary for calculation of interfacial tension, is presented. Saponin caused a reduction in interfacial tension from 48 to 9 dyn/cm, which can be decreased to ultralow IFT by the addition of salt and alcohol. According to the results, saponin can be used as a surface-active agent for enhanced oil recovery.