Iranian Researcher Finds Way to Enhance Oil Recovery Using Ionic Liquids
Mehdi Behrang, a graduate of chemical engineering at Omidieh branch of the Islamic Azad University, discovered that ionic liquids can significantly reduce surface tension between a solution and heavy oil, enhancing the oil recovery rate.
The recoverable amount of hydrocarbon initially in place, is normally expressed as a percentage. The recovery factor is a function of the displacement mechanism. An important objective of enhanced oil recovery is to increase the recovery factor.
Enhanced oil recovery is the extraction of crude oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. It can extract 30 percent to 60 percent or more of a reservoir's oil, compared to 20 percent to 40 percent using primary and secondary recovery.
An ionic liquid is a salt in which the ions are poorly coordinated, which results in these solvents being liquid below 100°C, or even at room temperature.
The main advantages of the use of ionic liquids in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) are their tunability and stability in harsh environmental conditions.
One of the most appropriate methods for enhancing the oil recovery rate is the use of "Smart Water" for inducing wettability alteration and the use of a surfactant in the aqueous solution for decreasing the surface tension with salinity.
Behrang used imidazolium ionic liquids such as dodecyl and methylimidazolium chloride to see the effect of chlorine-based salts at different pHs on surface tension.
He found that for resin oils, the surface tension decreased up to 0.4 millinewton meter, while the figure was 2.5 millinewton meter for heavy oil with the same pH (11).
All the salts were used with 500 ppm in order to be categorized as solutions with low salinity.
Iranian Oil Minister Javad Oji said in April that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is planning to award some enhanced oil recovery projects to domestic knowledge-based companies.
"The Oil Ministry uses the capacities of knowledge-based companies in increasing the output of the country’s offshore, onshore, and joint fields,” The official said.
4155/g
