Experimental and Theoretical Study of a New Plant Derived Surfactant Adsorption on Quartz Surface: Kinetic and Isotherm Methods

Nowadays, the use of surfactants through petroleum reservoirs to raise oil production in the subset of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) schemes has received much attention from scholars. Throughout their use, surfactants' adsorption onto the porous media surfaces is a crucial aspect of chemical EOR: The robustness and efficiency of the surfactant solution in regard to interfacial tension reduction between the oil and water phases and the wettability alteration of the reservoir rock surfaces toward more water is highly depend on the surfactant content of the aqueous solution while adsorption onto the rock surface reduced surfactant content through the referred solution. In light of this, in the current research, huge efforts have been made to monitor the adsorption behavior of the new plant-based surfactant as a proven EOR agent onto quartz rock samples in terms of adsorption isotherm and kinetic models which plays a crucial role in designing chemical stimulation through petroleum sandstone reservoirs. In addition, the adsorption fates of surfactant onto reservoir rock versus surfactant cost are major concerns of feasibility of chemical flooding through the porous medium. To achieve the main goal of the current study, batch adsorption approaches were utilized. Adsorption of the mentioned natural surfactant onto quartz samples was recorded versus time to describe the adsorption kinetic behavior experimentally, while the obtained kinetic results compared with four robust kinetic approaches. To achieve the adsorption outcomes, the Freundlich approach was found to be superior to other isotherm models in estimating the adsorption density of the new surfactant onto quartz surface. Moreover, pseudo-second-order model outputs followed the actual adsorption data with a high level of precision and integrity thanks to the value of correlation coefficient (R (2)). [GRAPHICS]