Bio-Surfactants with Various Types of Functional Groups of Fatty Acid Derivatives from Palm Oil which can be applied as EOR Surfactants from Low to High Temperature Reservoirs

Abstract

Despite the sustainable development of energy sources, crude oil and natural gas resources remain important elements of the international economy. With global demand for petroleum and liquid fuels continuing to increase, increasing the efficiency of extraction from existing petroleum reserves is of paramount importance as the world gradually shifts from fossil fuels to more sustainable sources. To that end, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques have been developed and used to minimize the amount of crude oil and petroleum left in underground reservoirs from conventional drilling extraction methods. Surfactants that are widely used in the implementation of EOR are mostly petroleum-based which have challenges from availability, so that many studies have carried out the synthesis of surfactants using palm oil-derived fatty acids as hydrophobic groups and various functional groups as hydrophilic groups.

In this paper, three types of surfactants derived from palm oil will be testing, namely Alkyl Ester Alkoxy, Alkyl Ether Alkoxy, and Internal Ketone Sulfonate surfactants. The surfactants were filtered at 5000, 18000, and 20000 ppm salinity conditions at 60 and 110 °C. Screening carried out includes compatibility tests, IFT, and thermal stability. The type of oil used varies for each surfactant, namely the type of medium oil with 34.39 °API and heavy with 24.8 °API.

Based on experiments that have been carried out in the laboratory where Alkoxy Surfactants are surfactants that were tested at 1800 ppm salinity, 60 °C temperature, and 34.39 °API oil, they were able to produce IFT values up to 10-3 dyne/cm, with slightly cloudy compatibility. However, for thermal stability, this surfactant can only last up to 1 month. Whereas the Alkyl Ether Alkoxy surfactants which were tested under the same conditions were able to survive for 3 months of heating. In contrast to the Internal Ketone Sulfonate surfactant formula, the test was carried out at 20000 ppm salinity, 110 °C temperature, and heavy oil with 24.8 °API. Experiments carried out in the laboratory represent that the performance of surfactants derived from plants is capable of providing an IFT value of up to 10 dyne/cm, with slightly cloudy compatibility, and able to stable no degraded up to 3 months of thermal stability testing.

This shows experimentally and chemically structure, surfactants derived from vegetable materials can be applied as Chemical EOR up to a high-temperature reservoir of 110 °C. The activity of a surfactant does not only depend on where the raw material comes from but how the structure and functional groups are created from the raw material to produce surfactant molecules that have powerful abilities. However, it is important to note that each type of surfactant with the same functional group but different carbon chain lengths and skeletal shapes will produce very different performances.