Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Surfactant adsorption caused by the reservoir rock mineralogy severely affects the efficiency in surfactant flooding for enhanced oil recovery processes. The loss of surfactant from adsorption prevents the significant reduction in interfacial tension of the oil/water interphase, making it unable to mobilize the residual oil. This study investigates the severity of anionic surfactant adsorption in different percentages of silica and clays. The objective of this study is to determine the behavior of anionic surfactants in clays and to determine which types of clay is most detrimental in surfactant adsorption. An anionic surfactant, alkyl ethoxy carboxylate, is used in this study as the surfactant of interest and is mixed with various percentages of quartz, kaolinite low defect, kaolinite high defect, and montmorillonite. The differences between the two kaolinites are the chemical compositions and its level of crystallinity is which the crystallinity of kaolinite high defect is poorly crystallized compared to kaolinite low defect. The clays used in this study are mixed with pure quartz where clay percentages vary between 0% to 20% in increments of 5% with the addition of 100% to obtain an approximate trend in adsorption from 0% to 100% clay concentrations. The critical micelle concentration of the surfactant is obtained where the surfactant solution at this concentration is mixed with clay-quartz mixtures of various concentrations. The loss of surfactant concentration by adsorption is determined by comparing the change in interfacial tension before and after the surfactant is introduced to the clayquartz mixture. This study observed a direct relationship between clay concentrations and surfactant adsorption where the increase in clay concentration increases the surfactant adsorption onto the minerals. It is found that adsorption occurs in pure quartz where the clay concentration is 0%. Surfactant adsorption in 100% concentrations of kaolinite low defect, kaolinite high defect, and montmorillonite yields significantly higher values compared to adsorption on pure quartz. The adsorption power of minerals used in this study for an anionic surfactant in increasing order is quartz < kaolinite low defect ? kaolinite high defect << montmorillonite where the adsorption power of montmorillonite is considerably higher than all the other minerals. The difference in adsorption for kaolinite low defect and kaolinite high defect are insignificant. The adsorption values obtained at 100% kaolinite of both types are both lower than the adsorption obtained from 100% montmorillonite. This study will provide a knowledge on how surfactant adsorption is dependent upon the clay content present in a sandstone rock where the mineral content consists of clay and quartz. The conclusions of this study will give engineers an idea on how the presence of clay will negatively affect surfactant flooding processes.