DSpace at VNU: Experimental investigation on the effect of nanoparticles on micellization behavior of a surfactant: Application to EOR

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Petroleum Science and Technology

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Experimental investigation the effect of nanoparticles on micellization behavior of a surfactant: Application to EOR

Mohammad-Ali Ahmadi, Zainal Ahmad, Le Thi Kim Phung, Tomoaki Kashiwao & Alireza Bahadori

To cite this article: Mohammad-Ali Ahmadi, Zainal Ahmad, Le Thi Kim Phung, Tomoaki

Kashiwao & Alireza Bahadori (2016) Experimental investigation the effect of nanoparticles on micellization behavior of a surfactant: Application to EOR, Petroleum Science and Technology, 34:11-12, 1055-1061, DOI: 10.1080/10916466.2016.1148051

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10916466.2016.1148051

Published online: 12 Jul 2016

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PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

, VOL , NOS –, –

http://dx.doi.org/./..

Experimental investigation on the effect of nanoparticles on

micellization behavior of a surfactant: Application to EOR

Mohammad-Ali Ahmadia, Zainal Ahmadb, Le Thi Kim Phungc, Tomoaki Kashiwaod, and

Alireza Bahadorie

aDepartment of Petroleum Engineering, Ahwaz Faculty of Petroleum Engineering, Petroleum University of Technology, Ahwaz, Iran;bSchool of Chemical Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Seri Ampangan, Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia;cDepartment of Chemical process and Equipment, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Hochiminh City University of Technology, Hochiminh City, Vietnam;dDepartment of Electronics and Control Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Niihama College, Yagumo-cho, Niihama, Ehime, Japan;eSchool of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia

KEYWORDS

Critical micelle concentration; enhanced oil recovery; hydrophobic; nanosilia; sugar based surfactant

ABSTRACT

Chemical stimulation such as surfactant flooding in petroleum reservoirs

makes efforts to produce remained oil and improve sweep efficiency by means

of different phenomena such as lowering interfacial tension and wettability

alteration of reservoir rock Implementing concentration of surfactant through

surfactant flooding is one of the big challenges while interfacial tension

between surfactant solution and oil after certain concentration involves

lit-tle changes such as critical micelle concentration (CMC) This article highlights

the effect of nanosilica on CMC of Zyziphus Spina Christi, as sugar-based

sur-factant, in aqueous solutions for enhanced oil recovery and reservoir

stimula-tion purposes A conductivity approach was selected to assess the CMC of the

introduced surfactant in aqueous solution at 25°C The influence of nanosilica

concentrations on CMC variation of introduced surfactant is considered It is

found that CMC of introduced surfactant decreased while the concentration

of the nanosilica increased Results from this study can aim in optimum

condi-tion seleccondi-tion of surfactant flooding as an enhanced oil recovery ends

1 Introduction

Surfactant flooding, which is normally classified as a subset of chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods, has been taken as a solution to enhance the oil displacement sweep efficiency through decreas-ing the interfacial tension between oil and water (McAuliffe,1973; Dranchuk et al.,1974; Johnson,1976; Kalfoglou,1977; Farouq Ali et al.,1979; Mannhardt et al.,1990; Tsau et al.,2000; Grigg and Svec,2003; Liu et al.,2007)

Dependency of critical micelle concentration (CMC) of Zyziphus Spina Christi (ZSC) to nanosilica

is not yet reported in the literature This article focuses on micellization behavior of ZSC in aqueous solutions contain nanosilica CMC measurement of the surfactant was determined via employing a con-ductivity method for aqueous phase Results from this research are demonstrated and explained in detail

in subsequent sections

CONTACTAlireza Bahadori alireza.bahadori@scu.edu.au School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Lismore,Australia.

Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/lpet.

Figure .(a) The image of ZSC observed under TEM (b) The image of nanosilica under TEM.

PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 1057

Table .Physical properties of nanoparticles.

Reprinted with permission from Mohammad Ali Ahmadi and Seyed Reza Shadizadeh, Adsorption of novel nonionic surfactant and particles mixture in carbonates: Enhanced oil recovery implication, Energy & Fuels, :– Copyright  American Chemical Society.

2 Experimental

2.1 Surfactant

One of the most popular trees in southern of Iran is ZSC According to open literature ZSC contain high concentration of saponins (Kjellim and Johansson, 2010) It should be mentioned here that saponins are natural surface-active substances (surfactants) present in more than 500 plant species and the same as other surfactant have hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts such as triterpenoid or steroid backbone and saccharide residues (Hostettmann and Marston,1995; Guglu-Ustundag and Mazza,2007; Stanimirova

et al.,2011)

Through our research, we implemented extracted brown powder from leaves of ZSC, which contains cyclopeptide alkaloids, as well as, saponin glycosides, and several flavonoids (Hostettmann and Marston,

1995; Guglu-Ustundag and Mazza,2007; Stanimirova et al.,2011) To achieve main goal of current work, the sugar-based surfactant was extracted from the leaves by spray dryer method while implemented leaves of ZSC were collected from south of Iran (Khuzestan State) and the total extracted powder contains Saponin and Flavonoids In addition, Image under TEM for extracted powder from ZSC leaves are shown

inFigure 1a

Figure .Conductivity versus surfactant concentration Reprinted from Fuel, , M A Ahmadi and S R Shadizadeh, Experimental inves-tigation of adsorption of a new nonionic surfactant on carbonate minerals, –, Copyright , with permission from Elsevier.

Figure .Effect of PPM of nanosilica on CMC of surfactant.

2.2 Nanoparticles

To obtain high precise results through this study, ultrapure nanosilica particles in different states were implemented According to wettability of the surface of the silica nanoparticles, they can be classified into two types: hydrophilic silica nanoparticle (NSHI) and hydrophobic silica nanoparticle (NSHO)

To assess the referred purpose of this research, AEROSIL R 816 and AEROSIL 200 were carried out as partially hydrophobic and hydrophilic nanoparticles which they were purchase from Degussa Physical properties of AEROSIL R816 and AEROSIL 200 are demonstrated inTable 1 In addition, Image under TEM for hydrophobic nanosilica is illustrated inFigure 1b

2.3 Preparation of Surfactant and Nanoparticle Solution

The stock solution of ZSC with concentrations of between 1000 and 80000 mg/L were prepared by dis-solving 0.10–8 g of ZSC in 1000 mL deionized water in a volumetric flask These solutions were then diluted to obtain standard solutions containing 1000–80000 mg/L of the ZSC

Figure .Effect of PPM of nanosilica on CMC of surfactant.

PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 1059

Figure .Effect of PPM of nanosilica on CMC of surfactant.

Thickening and thixotropic effects of nanosilica at a given concentration depend to a great extent

on the intensity of the dispersing Therefore the dispersion method is of crucial importance As rec-ommended by the producing companies, good results are achieved with ultrasonic homogenizer An ultrasonic homogenizer (UT-1200) has been implemented in this study to disperse the nanosilica parti-cles in the aqueous media The silica powder was weighed, wetted by the dispersing media (i.e., water) and then dispersed using the ultrasonic homogenizer for more than 5–6 h

.. CMC Measurement

Various routs were carried out to figure out CMC of surfactant in aqueous solution based on differ-ent intrinsic characteristic of surface active agdiffer-ent such as surface tension, interfacial tension, thermal conductivity, and electrical conductivity Through this research based on high electrical conductance behavior of introduced surfactant in aqueous solution, electrical conductivity measurement was selected

as robust and precise method to determine micellization behavior of introduced surfactant with/without nanoparticles in aqueous solutions To achieve end of this research, various concentration of introduced surfactant was considered in range of 1000–80000 ppm and plots of electrical conductance versus sur-factant concentrations for each nanoparticle concentrations were generated It should be noted that a conductivity detector from the Crison Company (EC-GLP 31+) was carried out through this research work Electrical conductivity trend for surfactant solution in various concentrations without nanoparti-cles is illustrated inFigure 2 This critical point should be mentioned here this is necessary to immerse

Figure .Effect of nanosilica on CMC value of surfactant.

probe of the conductivity meter in solution to guarantee the accuracy and precision of solutions electrical conductance

3 Results and Discussion

As known by chemical EOR experts, the value of CMC in surfactant flooding affects the performance

of the surfactant flooding in oil reservoirs because as a rule of thumb the amount of required surfactant concentration for injection is two or three times of CMC value Consequently, if CMC of the surfac-tant is high and cost of surfacsurfac-tant is high, then the performance of surfacsurfac-tant flooding from both an economical and technical point of views is questionable Moreover, the value of CMC also affects the adsorption behavior of surfactant This is another restriction parameter in surfactant flooding because

if the adsorption value of surfactant is high the applicability of surfactant is questionable again The changes in CMC with increasing the concentration of hydrophobic nanosilica are shown in Figures 3, 4, and5 As mentioned previously, turning point in plot of electrical conductivity against surfactant concentration represent CMC of surfactant Here we highlight micellization behavior of ZSC

in presence of different nanosilica such as hydrophilic nanosilica and partially hydrophobic nanosil-ica Conductivity measurements revealed that at constant surfactant concentration, nanosilica presence, either hydrophilic or slightly hydrophobic, had a very small effect on solution conductivity as shown

inFigure 6for ZSC-AEROSIL 200/AEROSIL R816 systems However, it seems that both nanoparticles influence the surfactant micellization properties particularly its CMC As can be seen inFigure 6, co-existence of ZSC and AEROSIL 200 nanosilica in a solution leaded to a CMC value lower that the one for sole ZSC system.Figure 6represents the CMCs of different systems considered in this study, it can

be seen that the presence of both nanoparticles have resulted in surfactant molecules to aggregate into micelles at lower concentrations This phenomenon is more severe for higher nanoparticle concentra-tions

The observed phenomenon may be related to surfactant-nanoparticle interactions Ignoring the little amount of surfactant adsorption on nanoparticle surface, the similar negative electrical charge on the sur-factant hydroxyl groups and nanoparticle surface results in an electrostatic repulsion between sursur-factant molecules toward each other and prompts the micellization process Moreover, the hydrophilic nanopar-ticles make the bulk solution unfavorable for hydrophobic surfactant tails and increase their affinity to form micelles Obviously, in such a situation, micelle aggregates form in lower concentration and CMC is reduced, when nanoparticle concentration increase, the repulsion forces become stronger (due to larger number of nanoparticles) Also, the bulk solution becomes more hydrophilic As a result, micellization occurs even at lower concentrations Another important point that may be inferred fromFigure 6is that the dramatic reduction of CMC is more considerable for hydrophilic AEROSIL 200 nanoparticles As mentioned previously, the presence of these nanoparticles intensifies the hydrophilic characteristics of the solvent As general rule, in aqueous medium, the greater the dissimilarity between the surfactant hydrophobic chain and solvent, the grater the aggregation number Consequently, sharper decrease in CMC value is observed respect to AEROSIL R816 slightly hydrophobic nanoparticles

4 Conclusions

Through this research, effects of the addition of different nanosilica particles on the micellization and the micellar growth of ZSC in aqueous solution have been systematically investigated From the results obtained from this work the following conclusion can be drawn: ignoring the little amount of surfac-tant adsorption on nanoparticle surface, the similar negative electrical charge on the surfacsurfac-tant hydroxyl groups and nanoparticle surface results in an electrostatic repulsion between surfactant molecules toward each other and prompts the micellization process In aqueous medium, the greater the dissimilarity between the surfactant hydrophobic chain and solvent, the grater the aggregation number Consequently, sharper decrease in CMC value is observed respect to AEROSIL R816 slightly hydrophobic nanoparti-cles

PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 1061

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