Phenol-alkoxylate co-solvent surfactant composition

Provided herein are, inter alia, compositions including a surfactant and a phenol-alkoxylate co-solvent useful in enhanced oil recovery. The compositions and methods provided herein are particularly useful for oil recovery under a broad range of reservoir conditions (e.g. high to low temperatures, high to low salinity, highly viscous oils).Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Light co-solvent compositions

Provided herein are inter alia non-surfactant aqueous compositions and methods having application in the field of enhanced oil recovery. In particular, non-surfactant compositions including light co-solvents and an alkali agent presented herein can be used, inter alia, for the recovery of a large range of crude oil compositions from challenging reservoirs.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Phenol-alkoxylate co-solvent surfactant composition

Provided herein are, inter alia, compositions including a surfactant and a phenol-alkoxylate co-solvent useful in enhanced oil recovery. The compositions and methods provided herein are particularly useful for oil recovery under a broad range of reservoir conditions (e.g. high to low temperatures, high to low salinity, highly viscous oils).Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Alkoxy carboxylate surfactants

Provided herein are inter alia novel compositions and methods having application in a variety of fields including the field of enhanced oil recovery, the cleaning industry as well as groundwater remediation. In particular, the alkoxy carboxylate compounds and mixtures thereof presented herein can be used, inter alia, for the recovery of a large range of crude oil compositions from challenging reservoirs.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Compositions and methods for controlling the stability of ethersulfate surfactants at elevated temperatures

The present invention describes the method of making an ether sulfate surfactant solution hydrolytically stable by adding one or more alkalinity generating agents at levels greater than 0.05%. The surfactant solutions of the present invention have half-lives >8 months at 100° C. and find uses in EOR applications, environmental cleanups, detergent industry, and any other surfactant based high temperature applications.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Modeling Wettability Alteration using Chemical EOR Processes in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs

The objective of our search is to develop a mechanistic simulation tool by adapting UTCHEM to model the wettability alteration in both conventional and naturally fractured reservoirs. This will be a unique simulator that can model surfactant floods in naturally fractured reservoir with coupling of wettability effects on relative permeabilities, capillary pressure, and capillary desaturation curves. The capability of wettability alteration will help us and others to better understand and predict the oil recovery mechanisms as a function of wettability in naturally fractured reservoirs. The lack of a reliable simulator for wettability alteration means that either the concept that has already been proven to be effective in the laboratory scale may never be applied commercially to increase oil production or the process must be tested in the field by trial and error and at large expense in time and money. The objective of Task 1 is to perform a literature survey to compile published data on relative permeability, capillary pressure, dispersion, interfacial tension, and capillary desaturation curve as a function of wettability to aid in the development of petrophysical property models as a function of wettability. The new models and correlations will be tested against published data. The models will then be implemented in the compositional chemical flooding reservoir simulator, UTCHEM. The objective of Task 2 is to understand the mechanisms and develop a correlation for the degree of wettability alteration based on published data. The objective of Task 3 is to validate the models and implementation against published data and to perform 3-D field-scale simulations to evaluate the impact of uncertainties in the fracture and matrix properties on surfactant alkaline and hot water floods

A NEW GENERATION CHEMICAL FLOODING SIMULATOR Semi-annual Report for the Period

ABSTRACT The premise of this research is that a general-purpose reservoir simulator for several improved oil recovery processes can and should be developed so that high-resolution simulations of a variety of very large and difficult problems can be achieved using stateof-the-art algorithms and computers. Such a simulator is not currently available to the industry. The goal of this proposed research is to develop a new-generation chemical flooding simulator that is capable of efficiently and accurately simulating oil reservoirs with at least a million gridblocks in less than one day on massively parallel computers. Task 1 is the formulation and development of solution scheme, Task 2 is the implementation of the chemical module, and Task 3 is validation and application. We have made significant progress on all three tasks and we are on schedule on both technical and budget. In this report, we will detail our progress on Tasks 1 through 3 for the first six months of the second year of the project. i

Surfactant enhanced remediation of soil columns contaminated by residual tetrachloroethylene

The ability of aqueous surfactant solutions to recover tetrachloroethylene (PCE) entrapped in Ottawa sand was evaluated in four column experiments. Residual PCE was emplaced by injecting 14C-labeled PCE into water-saturated soil columns and displacing the free product with water. Miscible displacement experiments were conducted before and after PCE entrapment to determine the influence of residual PCE on column dispersivities. The first two column studies involved the injection of a 4% solution of polyoxyethylene (POE) (20) sorbitan monooleate, resulting in the removal of 90% and 97% of the residual PCE from 20-30- and 40-120-mesh Ottawa sand, respectively. Although micellar solubilization of PCE was the primary mode of recovery in these experiments, this process was shown to be rate-limited based on: (a) the disparity between initial steady-state concentrations of PCE in the column effluent and equilibrium values measured in batch experiments; and (b) the increase in effluent concentrations of PCE following periods of flow interruption. In the latter two experiments, surfactant solutions containing mixtures of sodium sulfosuccinates removed >99% of the residual PCE from soil columns packed with 40-270-mesh Ottawa sand. Approximately 80% of the PCE was mobilized as a separate organic liquid after lushing with -1) are not required to achieve significant PCE mobilization when buoyancy forces are important. The potential for displacement of dense nonaqueousphase liquids as a separate organic phase should, therefore, be evaluated during the selection of surfactant formulations for aquifer remediation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31591/1/0000520.pd

A NEW GENERATION CHEMICAL FLOODING SIMULATOR Semi-annual Report for the Period

ABSTRACT 4 SUMMARY 4 Task 1: Formulation and development of Solution Scheme

Gravitating Opposites Attract

Generalizing previous work by two of us, we prove the non-existence of certain stationary configurations in General Relativity having a spatial reflection symmetry across a non-compact surface disjoint from the matter region. Our results cover cases such that of two symmetrically arranged rotating bodies with anti-aligned spins in $n+1$ ($n \geq 3$) dimensions, or two symmetrically arranged static bodies with opposite charges in 3+1 dimensions. They also cover certain symmetric configurations in (3+1)-dimensional gravity coupled to a collection of scalars and abelian vector fields, such as arise in supergravity and Kaluza-Klein models. We also treat the bosonic sector of simple supergravity in 4+1 dimensions.Comment: 13 pages; slightly amended version, some references added, matches version to be published in Classical and Quantum Gravit