Oil-Recovery Surfactant Formulation Development Using Surface Design Experiments

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Abstract
Experiments were conducted to study the effects of three surfactant flooding variables on oil recovery and interfacial tension (IFT). The variables studied were the fraction of high-equivalent-weight sulfonate, the cosurfactant hydrophile-lipophile balance (HLB), and the weight ratio of cosurfactant to sulfonate. We then evaluated the data statistically, obtaining optimal formulations for this data space. From trends observed in the investigation, a high crude-oil recovery formulation was developed for this crude-oil/brine system. All three variables had a significant effect on oil displacement. The high-equivalent-weight sulfonate was detrimental to recovery of the crude oil used in this investigation. Systems with low measured interfacial tensions did not produce the highest recoveries. This is explained by extraneous dominating effects.