Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is a generic term for techniques for increasing the amount of crude oil that can be extracted from an oil field. EOR is applied increasingly in the oil industry to optimize oil recovery after conventional recovery methods have been applied. EOR is also called improved oil recovery or tertiary recovery.
Surfactant flooding is one of the EOR techniques. This is the phase behaviour inside the reservoir which is manipulated by the injection of surfactants and co-surfactants, thus creating advantageous conditions to mobilize trapped oil. In surfactant flooding, surfactants which is the chemical system contains surface active agents is used. Surfactants are polymeric molecules that lower the interfacial tension between the liquid surfactant solution and the residual oil. Surfactants adsorb on a surface or fluid/fluid interface when present at low concentrations. The most common structural form for surfactants is where they contain a non-polar part, a hydrocarbon ‘tail’, and a polar or ionic part.
The characteristics of the surface active agent are generated b...
Oil provides us with many necessities in our lives. Cosmetics, medicines, cleaning products, asphalt, food, plastic, and most importantly, petroleum. But of course, nothing comes without a price. The oil that makes our lives so much more convenient, is also ironically gradually killing the environment, this very Earth that we live in. One of the biggest environmental concerns come from oil spills. Oil spill is defined as “ the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution.” Let’s look at some examples of these oil spills.
The Ocean Ranger The Ocean Ranger was an offshore exploration oil drilling platform that sank in Canadian waters 315 kilometres southeast from St. John's Newfoundland, on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland on February 15, 1982, with 84 crewmembers onboard. The Ocean Ranger was the largest semi-submersible, offshore exploration, oil drilling platform of the day. Built in 1976 by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, it operated off the coasts of Alaska, New Jersey, Ireland, and in November 1980 moved to the Grand Banks. Since it was so big, it was considered to have the ability to drill in areas too dangerous for other rigs.
There are three exploratory oil rigs that have been drilling under contract for several years along the Angola coast. Each oil rig owned by a United States drilling company. The case study focuses on a small oil rig called the “Explorer IV” housing 180 staff, 30 of these being American expatriate workers or “Expat”, and the top administrator in authority regarding life on the rig is an Expat himself. The purpose of the oil rig’s purpose is for drilling oil and to house all of the staff drilling and operating the rig. The rig is approximately 200 feet by 100 feet so cramped and tight living spaces is to be expected. However, there is a difference in living quarters, quality of food, medical care, and means of transportation between the Angolan’s and the Expats.
Once extracted from the earth, crude oil must be refined to become useful. Crude oil contains over 500 hundred hydrocarbons plus many other elements and additives that are all combined into one product. The refining process separates and groups these hydrocarbons together to make things that are of value to us such as gasoline and diesel fuel, waxes, asphalts, household fuel oil, industrial lubricating oils, greases and other petrochemicals.
After the oil/gas mixture is drawn from the ground, it is then stored into a storage tank and allowed to rest for a while. Then the gas is piped off to a set of distillation columns to clean up the ethane. In order to activate the chemical reaction necessary to separate the ethane, a thermal cracking unit (a sort of long heated tube) i.e. a plug flow reactor is used. After a series of distillations, ethylene exits the tube.
In today’s world humans are consuming massive amounts of fossil fuels. The top five oil consuming countries in the world are the usual suspects. These include the United States, China, Japan, India and Russia. Canada comes in at number 10 with a daily consumption of 2,287 thousand barrels per day. There are three major types of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. These resources were formed during the Carboniferous Period 360-286 million years ago. During this time earth was covered in swamps with large amounts of plants and waters filled with algae. When these plants and trees began to die they would form layers of peat. Hundreds and thousands of years would pass adding sand and other materials on top of the peat. This formed the sedimentary rocks we know today. As the thousands of years turned into millions of years the water of the peat layer was pushed out of the peat until the layer of diatoms turned into coal, oil or natural gas (CEC, 2013). Canada has oil industry throughout the country and currently 12 out of 13 provinces are active in the oil industry. Natural gas production is occurring in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Natural gas could also become large industry in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Oil production is currently taking place in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland & Labrador (CAPP, 2013).
The extraction of crude oil from the Athabasca oil sands is carried out by surface mining and in situ mining. 90% of recoverable bitumen is located too deep to be recovered by surface mining (Mossop, 1980). Both techniques require invasive processes to successfully extract the bitumen from the subsurface and result in degradation of the land upon which they ar...
Swift, W.H, . C.J. Touhill, W.L. Templeton, and D.P. Roseman. 1969. Oil spillage prevention, control, and restoration—state of the art and research needs. Washington, D.C.: The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.
Therefore, oil and water do not mix. This is why Oil does not dissolve when you run water over it. How does the oil wash off your hands if the water isn¡¦t soluble with the oil? This is where soap comes in. While soaps head is attracted to water its tail is attracted to non-polar substances such as oil. When oil and grease etc. mix with oil it creates a slightly polar substance because of the head group. This makes the oil soluble with water allowing you to wash off your hands with water and rinse the grease off.
1. Lorenzo’s parents used the scientific method to solve the situation of lorenzo dying by coming up will solution to his ALD problem and stayed up late every night for years straight just to find a cure for ald and to save their child and all the other kids that suffer from ald and save their lives and many other life that may yet come and suffer from ald
finding new ways to drill for oil and also refine it more efficiently to ensure that
This is an example of a soap molecule. The hydrocarbon end is non polar and hydrophilic (water hating) and the carboxylate end is polar and hydrophilic (water loving). This the property which allows it to clean, it acts as an emulsifying agent. The soap disperses in water to form miscelles where a negatively charged surface is formed and hydrocarbon chains are in the centre. These miscelles surround droplets of dirt or grease suspending them in the water so they can be washed away.
,n.d. web. 21 May 2014 Petroleum engineering. Encyclopedia Britannica. N.P., n.d. Web.
» Source: this includes an E P & from oil and characteristic gas from different topographical sources, including the most recent innovations.
The worst imaginable environmental catastrophe that could occur in Maryland has just become a reality. The lifeblood of Southern Maryland's Watermen has been forever affected. The ecosystems of the Patuxtent River and Chesapeake Bay have been irreversibly contaminated. The Three Mile Island and Chernobyl Nuclear Accidents have affected the world ecosystems; but the Chalk Point oil spill has reached us here in Southern Maryland. The ethical considerations with generating electricity from fossil fuels, specifically oil, has a profound impact on us all. We all use electricity to make our lives easier and more productive. By using this electricity have we given our permission for the oil companies free reign in order to provide us with the service we demand?? Are we just as responsible for the oil spill as the corporate leaders who run the companies? As citizens we are in a position to develop and enforce regulations to protect ourselves. Do we also protect the environment; or is the environment just something for us to use? These and many other moral dilemmas exist for modern man.