Comparison Experimental Study on Polyacrylamide and Rhamnolipid Biosurfactant Performance in Enhancement Oil Recovery in Homogenous and Non-homogenous Glass Micromodels

In recent years, many studies have been done on the use of surfactant to enhancement oil recovery from reservoirs; in which the performance of biosurfactant with chemical surfactant was compared. But so far no study has been conducted focusing on comparing the performance of biosurfactant with polymers as well as the effect of temperature on oil recovery. Therefore, the present study was dedicated to study the effect of temperature on the rhamnolipid biosurfactant performance using glass micromodel and to compare its performance with anionic polyacrylamide polymer. Thus, the results of the biosurfactant flooding tests were compared with saltwater and polyacrylamide flooding tests. Experiments were conducted at two temperature, 25 and 75 Celsius degrees, in two homogenous and non-homogenous micromodels. Results indicated that in the homogenous model, for two mentioned temperatures, enhanced oil recovery due to flooding with rhamnolipid biosurfactant was 48 and 62, respectively, in which there was 9 and 12.7 percent improvement in compare to saltwater. Meanwhile, the results of polymer flooding showed 61 and 70 percent enhancement, respectively. The same results were obtained in non-homogenous model. The enhanced oil recovery due to rhamnolipid biosurfactant injection in two temperatures were 41 and 51 percent, respectively, which it is higher compared to saltwater and lower compared to polymer. In general, at higher temperature, oil recovery increased in both homogenous and non-homogenous models under three floods.