Use of Surfactants to Recover Oils From Groundwater (2001)

Use of Surfactants to Recover Oils From Groundwater Shekhar Jayanti; Shekhar Jayanti The University of Texas Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Gary A. Pope; Gary A. Pope The University of Texas Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Vinitha Weerasooriya; Vinitha Weerasooriya The University of Texas Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Lirong Zhong; Lirong Zhong The University of Texas Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Dwarakanath Varadarajan; Dwarakanath Varadarajan Duke Engineering and Services, Austin Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Malik Taimur Malik Taimur Duke Engineering and Services, Austin Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Paper presented at the SPE/EPA/DOE Exploration and Production Environmental Conference, San Antonio, Texas, February 2001. Paper Number: SPE-66753-MS https://doi.org/10.2118/66753-MS Published: February 26 2001 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Get Permissions Search Site Citation Jayanti, Shekhar, Pope, Gary A., Weerasooriya, Vinitha, Zhong, Lirong, Varadarajan, Dwarakanath, and Malik Taimur. "Use of Surfactants to Recover Oils From Groundwater." Paper presented at the SPE/EPA/DOE Exploration and Production Environmental Conference, San Antonio, Texas, February 2001. doi: https://doi.org/10.2118/66753-MS Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll ProceedingsSociety of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)SPE Health, Safety, Security, Environment, Search Advanced Search AbstractLaboratory phase behavior and soil column experiments were conducted using branched alcohol propoxy sulfate surfactants to evaluate their effectiveness in removing gasoline and diesel range hydrocarbons from contaminated groundwater. Very low residual oil saturations were achieved with a much smaller amount of surfactant than typically required in surfactant enhanced aquifer remediation (SEAR). This type of surfactant has been shown to be both robust and efficient even when used at low temperatures and without co-solvent.IntroductionThe contamination of groundwater by nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) is a widespread problem. The NAPL moves through the subsurface due to gravity forces and is trapped in pores by capillary forces. The trapped NAPL can persist in the soil for many decades (1). Large volumes of water can be contaminated and migrate long distances as the contaminants dissolve into the water and form a dissolved phase aqueous plume. Most of the contaminant mass remains in the NAPL, so it must be removed or it will continue to feed the plume.The conventional remediation method of pump and treat involves pumping of contaminated water followed by treatment at the surface by air stripping, steam stripping, activated carbon filtration and various other means. The hydraulic force imposed upon the NAPL as a result of pumping alone is usually insufficient to lower the residual NAPL saturation to acceptable levels. The limitations of pump and treat are well known (1–4).Surfactants can be used to vastly increase the solubility of the NAPL constituents in water (5,6). Surfactants also lower the interfacial tension at the water-NAPL interface. Ultra-low interfacial tension can reduce the capillary forces and cause mobilization and the formation of an oil bank at sufficiently high capillary numbers. Some surfactants are also biodegradable and can be used as a substrate to promote biodegradation in the aqueous phase once the NAPL is removed.Some of the early studies of surfactants to remediate light nonaqueous phase liquids such as gasoline and diesel can be found in references 7–14. These early studies made relatively little use of the extensive literature on surfactant enhanced oil recovery (15–17). In recent years, vast improvements have been made in SEAR due to a better understanding of surfactants and microemulsions and better formulations based upon phase behavior experiments (18–32). Elliott (30) and Jayanti (31) have shown the effectiveness of alcohol propoxy surfactants in recovering tetrachloroethene (PCE).Surfactant flooding has been recently demonstrated at several field sites (33–41). Both of the surfactant floods in the DNAPL pool of Operable Unit 2 at Hill AFB, Utah, resulted in final average DNAPL saturations in the swept volumes of each wellfield on the order of only 0.0003 (33–35,40). A thermally enhanced surfactant flood using a propoxy sulfate surfactant at 50°C was conducted at a field site and found to perform extremely well with 88% removal of a fuel oil with 1000 cp viscosity (41–43).The use of alcohol cosolvents to improve the performance of surfactant enhanced oil recovery has been known for a long time. In general the need for cosolvent is greater for lower temperatures typical of groundwater aquifers than for oil reservoirs. The addition of a suitable cosolvent improves the fluidity of the microemulsion-NAPL interfaces, prevents the formation of gels and/or liquid crystals and induces macroemulsions to equilibrate to stable microemulsions faster. Dwarakanath and Pope (44, 45) report similar benefits for SEAR. However, the use of alcohol cosolvents increases the cost of treating the effluent from SEAR and has other disadvantages. Keywords: pope, weerasooriya, sabatini, surfactant, university, waterflooding, upstream oil & gas, aquifer, subsurface remediation, experiment Subjects: Improved and Enhanced Recovery, Environment, Waterflooding, Chemical flooding methods, Remediation and land reclamation This content is only available via PDF. 2001. Society of Petroleum Engineers You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.