An experimental investigation into enhancing oil recovery using combination of new green surfactant with smart water in oil-wet carbonate reservoir

Abstract

Enhancing oil recovery from oil-wet carbonate oil reservoir is an important challenge in the world, especially in Middle East oil field. Surfactant and smart water can change the interfacial tension and wettability condition of this type of rock to water wet from oil wet. The present study follows the experimental work of the combination of new green surfactant with smart water to enhance oil recovery from a carbonate oil-wet rock. Wettability alternation and IFT reduction by surfactant, smart water and combination of surfactant with smart water were investigated experimentally. The results show that making surfactant solution using smart water can reduce oil saturation by reducing IFT and alter wettability conditions. The oil recovery factor at the end of water, surfactant and surfactant–smart water flooding was 36, 52 and 66%, respectively. It shows that combination of surfactant with smart water can help surfactant to be powerful.