RESEARCH ARTICLE


Fluorosurfactants in Enhanced Oil Recovery



Peter M. Murphy*, Tracy Hewat
DuPont Experimental Station, 200 Powder Mill Road, ESL402/5337, Wilmington, DE 19803, USA.


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© 2008 Murphy et al.;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Correspondence: * Address correspondence to this author at the DuPont Experimental Station, 200 Powder Mill Road, ESL402/5337, Wilmington, DE 19803, USA; Tel: 302-695-6675; Fax: 302-695-8680; E-mail: peter.m.murphy@usa.dupont.com


Abstract

Fluorosurfactants are effective in a variety of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques including (i) improving subterranean wetting, (ii) increasing foam stability, and (iii) modifying the surface properties of the reservoir formation. While fluorosurfactants have been used in gas and oil exploration for four decades, the increased demand for petroleum and the greater understanding of the benefits of fluorosurfactants have led to growing acceptance for fluorosurfactants throughout the petroleum industry. This mini-review summarizes the published research for fluorosurfactants in EOR from 1977 to 2007. The references in this mini-review are mostly patents (vs peer reviewed articles) and laboratory models of the benefits of fluorosurfactants in EOR (vs actual oil and gas recovery experiments). This summary of the published reports on fluorosurfactants in EOR provides petroleum scientists and engineers an overview of this emerging technology.

Keywords: Fluorosurfactant, enhanced oil recovery, foam.