Surfactant Behavior Analysis in Enhanced Oil Recovery Blends Using One-Dimensional Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

In this work, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is used to investigate surfactant phase behavior relevant to chemical enhanced oil recovery. The effect of the solution electrical conductivity on the NMR signals was corrected using reference spectra of known conductivity. This allowed us to develop a semi-quantitative method to estimate the surfactant concentration by correlating it with either integrated NMR peaks or intensity of selected surfactant signal peaks. A distinct change in the slope of the assumed linear relationship between signal intensity and surfactant concentration was observed as the surfactant concentrations were increased. This was attributed to the progressive surfactant aggregation in solution. This result can be used as an alternative method to estimate the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of surfactants. NMR spectra were collected for individual surfactants and their combinations in a variety of saline aqueous solutions. Our results were compared to estimates obtaine...

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