Avaliação de sistemas constituídos por polímeros/ tensoativo/ EDTA na recuperação avançada de petróleo

Abstract

Enhanced oil recovery has been the focus of countless research projects aiming for the improvement of the in place oil recovery from the reservoirs, especially because mature fields and/or fields containing heavy oil require further assistance to ensure oil flow and consequent production. Having that in mind, physical and chemical properties such as the rheological behaviour and the superficial tension of polymers, for different concentrations and temperatures, were studied. After obtaining the polymers critical aggregation concentration (c.a.c.), the interfacial tension (IFT) between the polyacrylamide/oil solutions was evaluated, as well as for the solutions containing surfactant (SB) and EDTA. The permeability and the application of those solutions in enhanced oil recovery of those solutions was also observed using the Botucatu arenite. The results obtained demonstrated that the increase in the polymers ionicity promotes an increase in the solution viscosity. An increase in temperature reduced the viscosity for the low ionicity polyacrylamides, but caused an increase in the viscosity for some of the high ionicity ones. Concerning permeability, the anionic polymers presented higher injection pressure values when compared to the lower ionicity ones, and that behaviour is believed to be related to the viscosities of those polymers, which are higher. Regarding superficial tension, the c.a.c. region for each polymer was observed, and the conclusion was that the ionic charges had little or no influence in the reduction of interfacial tensions between the oil and the polymers, while the decrease in IFT for all solutions was observed when compared to the system formed by water and oil. The aforementioned results are a good indicator that the polymers studied are suitable for the enhanced oil recovery process. By injecting the solutions into the porous media, it was observed that the solutions formed by SB associated to EDTA improved the flow inside the porous media. The results indicated that the enhanced oil recovery using the polymer/ surfactant/ EDTA solutions reached a recovery factor of 18 % of the original oil. In addition, it could be observed that polymers presenting the higher ionicity, associated to surfactant and EDTA, promoted a synergy in the enhanced oil recovery when compared to the solutions containing only polymers.