Papers by Keyword: Surfactant Adsorption

Abstract: Alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding has been identified as the most effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique to boost up the production of crude oil and improve the recoverable reserves. However, surfactant loss into the formation due to adsorption has been one of the issues, which could degrade the efficiency of the process. This study highlights the static adsorption of anionic sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) surfactant on the quartz sand with presences of alkaline and polymer at different pH and surfactant concentration. The critical micellar concentration (CMC) of SDS was determined using surface tension method and found at 0.22wt%. Three different systems were formulated namely A, B and C referring to the Surfactant formulation, Alkaline-Surfactant (AS) formulation and Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) formulation, respectively. For static adsorption tests, ASP system was formulated by adding 10,000 ppm sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃) and 500 ppm of anionic Hydrolyzed Polyacrylamide (HPAM) polymer into the surfactant solution. The formulation was then mixed with the quartz sand at a fixed mass to volume ratio of 1:5. The adsorption tests involved shaking the mixtures, centrifuging, and analysing the supernatant solutions using UV-Visible spectrophotometer for adsorption measurement. The adsorption tests resulted in low adsorption at higher pH and low surfactant concentration. It was discovered that the lowest surfactant adsorption exhibited by ASP system with approximate reductions of 65% and 63% as compared to surfactant formulation at ~pH 12 and 2000 ppm surfactant concentration, respectively. Thus, anionic surfactant has a great performance in ASP system compared to its individual formulation, resulting in lower surfactant adsorption.

Abstract: The determination of electrokinetic properties such as the zeta-potential of polymer samples with classical methods is laborious and time-consuming. For this reasons, a reliable, fast, and easy to use measurement system based on streaming potential measurement was developed. In this novel measurement system, streaming potential is created by an oscillating flow of a small amount of electrolyte solution through the sample media. In addition, this setup allows direct titration and therefore time-resolved monitoring of changes in zeta-potential in a seconds timescale. With this instrument, the concentration- as well as the time-dependent adsorption behaviour of various non-ionic, anionic and cationic surfactants on a novel, regenerated cellulosic polymer was investigated. This new cellulose-based, fibrous textile polymer is permanently cationised, not only at the surface but throughout the whole fibre. The results show that even very low concentrations of surfactant, due to its charge and chemical composition, highly influence the surface charge of the polymer in a large range. Furthermore, the results for this new textile material are compared with other textile fibres, e. g. wool.