Performance and thermal decomposition analysis of foaming agent NPL-10 for use in heavy oil recovery by steam injection

• Main Authors: Zhao Fa-Jun, Wang Yun-Long, Song Jun, Ma Hai-Cheng, Liu Hao-Liang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2018-02-01
• Series: Open Chemistry
• Subjects: thermal recovery; foam flooding; foaming agent; foamability; thermal decomposition
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/chem-2018-0002

Foaming agents, despite holding potential in steam injection technology for heavy oil recovery, are still poorly investigated. In this work, we analyzed the performance of the foaming agent NPL-10 in terms of foam height and half-life under various conditions of temperature, pH, salinity, and oil content by orthogonal experiments. The best conditions of use for NPL-10 among those tested are T=220°C, pH 7, salinity 10000 mg·L–1 and oil content 10 g·L–1. Thermal decomposition of NPL-10 was also studied by thermogravimetric and differential thermal analyses. NPL-10 decomposes above 220°C, and decomposition is a two-step process. The kinetic triplet (activation energy, kinetic function and pre-exponential factor) and the corresponding rate law were calculated for each step. Steps 1 and 2 follow kinetics of different order (n = 2 and ½, respectively). These findings provide some criteria for the selection of foaming agents for oil recovery by steam injection.