resumo
Studies on the ionic liquids (ILs) for Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (CEOR) processes are limited. This work aims at fulfilling a gap in the research on IL-based CEOR processes (hereby designated by IL-EOR), showing the possibility to use the ILs as an alternative to the conventional chemicals widely studied for this purpose. Results application of ionic liquids are here reported, for the first time, on IL-EOR at Lab scale using a sand-pack column model. A 2 wt% aqueous solution of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tosylate ([C(2)mim][OTs]) was used to recover an aromatic oil. The results show that a flooding processes using only 4 pore volumes (PV) could recover 65.7% (+/- 1.0) of the oil in place, almost the double of what was recovered with a brine solution (NaCl, 2 wt%). These preliminary results, requiring further optimization of the IL characteristics and concentration, and other process parameters, suggest that water-flooding with aqueous solutions of ILs can contribute to enhance the oil recovery in mature reservoirs. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
palavras-chave
ALIPHATIC-HYDROCARBONS; EXTRACTION; EQUILIBRIA; MIXTURES; SOLVENTS; BITUMEN
categoria
Energy & Fuels; Engineering
autores
Pereira, JFB; Costa, R; Foios, N; Coutinho, JAP
nossos autores
Ana Rita Dias da Costa
Bolseiro de investigação
Jorge Fernando Brandão Pereira
Estudante de doutoramentoagradecimentos
The authors would like to acknowledge Prof. Ascensao Lopes and Ana Paula Piedade from CEMUC, University of Coimbra, for assisting in the surface charge measurements. Jorge F.B. Pereira acknowledges the financial support from FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia, Portugal, for the Grant SFRH/BD/60228/2009. CICECO is being funded by FCT through Pest-C/CTM/LA0011/2013. This work was also supported by PARTEX OIL AND GAS, Portugal.