EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF INDIAN-ALMOND ORIGINATED SURFACTANT IN ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY APPLICATIONS

Abstract

Chemical injection to enhance oil recovery is proven to increase oil recovery, but the use of chemicals can be environmentally damaging, so this research is very important as an effort to use natural chemicals as surfactants derived from Indian Almonds to reduce the environmental hazards caused. Surfactants from this natural material will be tested with the stages of aqueous stability, phase behavior, viscosity, density, interfacial tension, and core flooding. The results showed that the surfactant from Indian Almonds can be completely soluble with brine, forming a bottom-phase emulsion. The optimum interfacial tension value was obtained at 7.5% concentration of 6.5 mN/m; at this concentration, the critical micelle concentration was reached. Subsequently, the application of the core flooding test resulted in a significant increase in oil recovery, reaching 74.36% for artificial cores with a mesh size of 50 and 62.5% for artificial cores with a mesh size of 40. This study shows the surfactants from Indian Almonds has technical capabilities as the EOR method for the alternative chemical injection.