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US 9,850,421 B2Granted
Use of carbon dioxide soluble nonionic surfactants for enhanced crude oil recovery
AssigneeDow Global Technologies LLC
InventorsSayeed Abbas, Aaron W. Sanders, Debashis Chakraborty
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Abstract
The present disclosure includes a nonionic surfactant and a method of providing the nonionic surfactant, where the nonionic surfactant is soluble in carbon dioxide and is used as part of a dispersion for enhanced crude oil recovery. The nonionic surfactant can be part of an emulsion that includes carbon dioxide and a diluent.
Claims16
A dispersion for enhanced crude oil recovery, comprising:
- carbon dioxide in a liquid or a super critical state;
- a diluent selected from the group consisting of water, brine, connate water, surface water, distilled water, carbonated water, sea water and combinations thereof;
- and
- a nonionic surfactant provided by a reaction product of an alkoxylation reaction of a primary aliphatic amine with propylene oxide followed by ethylene oxide, wherein the primary aliphatic amine is selected from a tertiary butylamine, a branched C8 tertiary alkyl primary amine, a mixture of branched C16 to C33 tertiary alkyl primary amine isomers and a mixture of branched C12 to C14 tertiary alkyl primary amine isomers, where the nonionic surfactant is formed with a molar ratio of propylene oxide to the branched alkyl monoamine in a range of 1.5:1.0 moles to 10:1.0 moles and a molar ratio of ethylene oxide to branched alkyl monoamine in a range of 3.0:1.0 moles to 40.0:1.0 moles.
1 more element
A method for recovering crude oil from a subterranean formation that is penetrated by at least one injection well and one production well, comprising:
- forming a dispersion of carbon dioxide and a diluent in the subterranean formation with a nonionic surfactant, the nonionic surfactant provided by a reaction product of an alkoxylation reaction of primary aliphatic amine with propylene oxide followed by ethylene oxide, wherein the primary aliphatic amine is selected from a tertiary butylamine, a branched C8 tertiary alkyl primary amine, a mixture of branched C16 to C33 tertiary alkyl primary amine isomers and a mixture of branched C12 to C14 tertiary alkyl primary amine isomers, where the nonionic surfactant is formed with a molar ratio of propylene oxide to the branched alkyl monoamine in a range of 1.5:1.0 moles to 10:1.0 moles and a molar ratio of ethylene oxide to branched alkyl monoamine in a range of 3.0:1.0 moles to 40.0:1.0 moles, wherein the diluent is selected from the group consisting of water, brine, connate water, surface water, distilled water, carbonated water, sea water and combinations thereof;
- and
- recovering crude oil from the subterranean formation from a production well.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.