Investigation on stabilization of foam in the presence of crude oil for improved oil recovery

A major concern, in the foam flooding projects, is the stability of foam in the presence of oil. In this study we chose three foaming agents with different behaviors in the oil-bearing environments and examined their performance in terms of the emulsified oil and the pseudoemulsion films. The results indicate that the state of the emulsified oil or the pseudoemulsion films has a significant impact on foam stability. Two hypothesizes suggest that the role of emulsified oil played in foam stabilization can be summarized as increasing the emulsion stability and creating the viscous liquid phase, and interfacial adsorption and viscoelastic layers of pseudoemulsion films present a strong correlation with the foam stability. From the foam flooding experiments, the oil-enhanced foam is deemed to be more efficient in the oil displacement and the liquid diversion. [GRAPHICS] .