Analysis of Surfactant and Polymer Behavior on Water/Oil Systems as Additives in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Technology through Molecular Dynamics Simulation: A Preliminary Study
Abstract
The decline in oil production has led to the development of the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology to increase oil production. Chemical injection is one of the methods in EOR by injecting surfactants or polymers into reservoir wells. To understand the properties and dynamics of surfactants and polymers at the nanoscale, computational studies using molecular dynamics simulation were carried out. In this study, surfactant Sodium Dodecyl Benzene Sulfonate (SDBS) and polymers such as Polyacrylamide (PAM) were used to investigate their effect on the oil-water interface system at the atomic level. Molecular dynamics simulation was carried out using Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) to calculate the diffusion coefficient and Interface Formation Energy (IFE) value for the addition of the surfactant and polymers. The simulation results show that the addition of the surfactant and polymers affects the water-oil interface system differently. The diffusion coefficient results indicates that there are strong interactions between SDBS and dodecane with D of 0.01358. While for PAM, the interactions with water are more significant with D of 0.059. The results of the IFE calculation value also show that the addition of SDBS and PAM makes the water-oil interface system more stable with the negative IFE value of -197.51 and -13.13 Kcal/mol respectively. The results of this study will be used as a reference and a basis for designing new surfactants or polymers that will led to more oil recovery.
Full text article
References
Ahmadi, M., Hou, Q., Wang, Y., and Chen, Z. (2020). Interfacial and molecular interactions between fractions of heavy oil and surfactants in porous media: Comprehensive review. Advance Colloid Interface Science, 283, 102242, Sep. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CIS.2020.102242.
Alvarado, V. and Manrique, E. (2010). Enhanced Oil Recovery: Field Planning and Development Strategies. Boston: Gulf Professional Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2009-0-30583-8.
Bera, A. and Mandal, A. (2015). Microemulsions: a novel approach to enhanced oil recovery: a review. J Pet Explor Prod Technol, 5, 3, 255–268. https://doi.org/10.1007/S13202-014-0139-5/FIGURES/6.
Chusuei, C. C. (2018). Chemical modification of nanoparticle surfaces targeting solubility in water and organic solvents. Encyclopedia of Interfacial Chemistry: Surface Science and Electrochemistry, 628–636. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-409547-2.13131-2.
Gurina, D., Surov, O., Voronova, M., & Zakharov, A. (2020). Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Polyacrylamide Adsorption on Cellulose Nanocrystals. Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland), 10(7), 1256. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano10071256.
Jang, S.S., Lin, S., Maiti, P.K., Blanco, M., Goddard, W.A., Shuler, P.J., & Tang, Y. (2004). Molecular Dynamics Study of a Surfactant-Mediated Decane-Water Interface: Effect of Molecular Architecture of Alkyl Benzene Sulfonate. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 108, 12130-12140. . https://doi.org/10.1021/JP048773N.
Kendhale, A., Gonnade, R., Rajamohanan, P. R., and Sanjayan, G. J. (2006). Isotactic N-alkyl acrylamide oligomers assume self-assembled sheet structure: first unequivocal evidence from crystal structures. Chemical Communications, (26), 2756–2758. https://doi.org/10.1039/B601317A.
Li, J., Han, Y., Qu, G., Cheng, J., Xue, C., Gao, X., Sun, T., and Ding, W. (2017). Molecular dynamics simulation of the aggregation behavior of N-Dodecyl-N,N-Dimethyl-3-Ammonio-1-Propanesulfonate/sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate surfactant mixed system at oil/water interface. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 531, 73–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COLSURFA.2017.07.088.
Mahboob, A., Kalam, S., Kamal, M. S., Hussain, S. M. S., and Solling, T. (2022). EOR Perspective of microemulsions: A review. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 208, 109312. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PETROL.2021.109312.
Massarweh, O., and Abushaikha, A. S. (2020). The use of surfactants in enhanced oil recovery: A review of recent advances. Energy Reports, 6, 3150–3178. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.EGYR.2020.11.009.
Meng, J., Yin, F., Li, S., Zhong, R., Sheng, Z., and Nie, B. (2019). Effect of different concentrations of surfactant on the wettability of coal by molecular dynamics simulation. International Journal of Minining Science and Technology, 29(4), 577–584. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJMST.2019.06.010.
Nnyigide, O.S., Nnyigide, T.O., & Hyun, K. (2021). The degradation of xanthan gum in ionic and non-ionic denaturants studied by rheology and molecular dynamics simulation. Carbohydrate polymers, 251, 117061. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CARBPOL.2020.117061.
Ong, E. E. S., O’Byrne, S., and Liow, J. L. (2018). Molecular dynamics study on the structural and dynamic properties of xanthan gum in a dilute solution under the effect of temperature. AIP Conference Proceeding, 1954 (1), 030008. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5033388.
Schmid, N., Eichenberger, A. P., Choutko, A., Riniker, S., Winger, M., Mark, A. E., & van Gunsteren, W. F. (2011). Definition and testing of the GROMOS force-field versions 54A7 and 54B7. European biophysics journal : EBJ, 40(7), 843–856. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-011-0700-9.
Suharyati, Pambudi, S. H., Wibowo, J. L., and Pratiwi, N. I. Outlook Energi Indonesia 2019. Jakarta: Kementrian Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral, 2019.
Sun, L., Zhang, K., Zhao, Q. (2020). Molecular Dynamics Study on the Effects of Metal Cations on Microscale Interfacial Properties of Oil–Water-Surfactant System. Transport in Porous Media, 140, 3, 629–642. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11242-020-01501-1.
Tang, J., Qu, Z., Luo, J., He, L. (2018). Molecular Dynamics Simulations of the Oil-Detachment from the Hydroxylated Silica Surface: Effects of Surfactants, Electrostatic Interactions, and Water Flows on the Water Molecular Channel Formation. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 122, 6, 1905–1918. https://doi.org/10.1021/ACS.JPCB.7B09716/SUPPL_FILE/JP7B09716_SI_001.PDF.
Tang, X., Xiao, S., Lei, Q., Yuan, L., Peng, B., He, L., Luo, J., & Pei, Y. (2018). Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Surfactant Flooding Driven Oil-Detachment in Nano-Silica Channels. The journal of physical chemistry. B, 123 (1), 277-288 . https://doi.org/10.1021/ACS.JPCB.8B09777/SUPPL_FILE/JP8B09777_SI_001.PDF.
Wang, J. and Hou, T. (2011). Application of molecular dynamics simulations in molecular property prediction II: diffusion coefficient. Journal of Computation Chemistry, 32(16), 3505–3519. https://doi.org/10.1002/JCC.21939.
Wang, X., Zhang, Z., Zhang, J., and He, J. (2020). Insight into the pressure-induced displacement mechanism for selecting efficient nanofluids in various capillaries. Environmental Science: Nano, 7(9), 2785–2794. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EN00462F.
Wever, D. A. Z., Picchioni, F., and Broekhuis, A. A. (2011). Polymers for enhanced oil recovery: A paradigm for structure–property relationship in aqueous solution. Prog Polym Sci, 36, 11, 1558–1628. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PROGPOLYMSCI.2011.05.006.
Xu, J., Zhang, Y., Chen, H., Wang, P., Xie, Z., Yao, Y., Yan, Y., & Zhang, J. (2013). Effect of surfactant headgroups on the oil/water interface: An interfacial tension measurement and simulation study. Journal of Molecular Structure, 1052, 50-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.MOLSTRUC.2013.07.049.
Yang, Y., Ma, Z., Xia, F., and Li, X. Adsorption behavior of oil-displacing surfactant at oil/water interface: Molecular simulation and experimental. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 36, 101292. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JWPE.2020.101292.
Zembyla, M., Murray, B. S., and Sarkar, A. (2020). Water-in-oil emulsions stabilized by surfactants, biopolymers and/or particles: a review. Trends Food Science and Technology, 104, 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TIFS.2020.07.028.
Zhou, L., Yan, Y., Li, S., and Wang, K. (2021). Molecular dynamic simulation study on formation of water channel in oil film detachment process controlled by surfactant polarity. Chemistry Physic Letter, 771, 138502. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CPLETT.2021.138502.
Zulkifli, N. N., Mahmood, S. M., Akbari, S., Manap, A. A. A., Kechut, N. I., and Elrais, K. A. (2020). Evaluation of new surfactants for enhanced oil recovery applications in high-temperature reservoirs. J Pet Explor Prod Technol, 10(2), 283–296. https://doi.org/10.1007/S13202-019-0713-Y/FIGURES/16.
Authors
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. The copyright in the text of individual articles (including research articles, opinion articles, and abstracts) is the property of their respective authors, subject to a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA licence granted to all others. JEEE allows the author(s) to hold the copyright without restrictions and allows the author to retain publishing rights without restrictions.