Most common surfactants employed in chemical enhanced oil recovery

Chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and particularly surfactant injection has recently received a great deal of attention. The suggested recovery mechanisms after injecting surfactants include wettability alteration and IFT reduction. If a surfactant is properly selected according to the environmental variables-such as pressure, temperature, salinity, it can lead to more efficient enhanced recovery from an oil reservoir. On the other hand, poor selection of the surfactant can result in a low recovery and can even become detrimental to the reservoir due to undesirable wettability alteration and possible rock dissolution resulting in a chemical reaction with displacing fluid and blockage of the pore space.…