Toward reducing surfactant adsorption on clay minerals by lignin for enhanced oil recovery application

Abstract

The significant loss of surfactants during reservoir flooding is a challenge in oil field operations. The presence of clay minerals affects the surfactant performance, resulting in surfactant losses. This is because the mineralogical composition of the reservoir results in unpredicted adsorption quantity. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate Aerosol-OT's adsorption on different quartz/clay mineral compositions during the flow. Also, it investigates adsorption mitigation by preflushing with lignin. The dynamic experiments were conducted on sand packs composed of quartz-sand and up to a 7% clay mineral content. The results obtained from the surfactant losses were compared with/without lignin preflush at different pH values. The main observation was the direct relationship between increasing the composition of clay minerals and the surfactant pore volume required to overcome the adsorption. The highest adsorption calculated was 46 g/kg for 7% kaolinite. Moreover, lignin successfully reduced the adsorption of Aerosol-OT by 60%. Therefore, the results demonstrate that the effects of the clay mineral content on adsorption could be efficiently minimized using lignin at a high pH.