ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Chem.
Sec. Green and Sustainable Chemistry
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fchem.2025.1660041
This article is part of the Research TopicGreen Chemistry in Geo-energy Development: Fundamental and ApplicationsView all 4 articles
Roles and Thresholds of Viscosity and Interfacial Tension in Surfactant Flooding for Residual Oil Recovery
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Human Settlement and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
- 2School of Chemistry, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
- 3Research Institute of Petroleum Engineering and Technology, Shengli Oilfield Company, Sinopec, Dongying, China
- 4Shaanxi Detian Licheng New Materials Technology Co., Ltd., Xi'an, China
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Surfactant flooding is an effective chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique, but the quantitative roles of viscosity and interfacial tension (IFT) in residual oil mobilization remain unclear. In this study, the physicochemical properties of surfactant solutions were first characterized by systematic measurements of viscosity and IFT, and the dynamic mechanisms of water flooding and surfactant flooding were further investigated using a pore–throat model, consisting of channels with and without pore-like structures, combined with direct numerical simulations to identify viscosity and IFT thresholds under different wettability conditions. The results show that residual oil distribution is strongly influenced by wettability: in strongly water-wet and neutral-wet conditions, oil remains as droplet-or cluster-like ganglia within pore spaces, whereas in strongly oil-wet conditions it persists as continuous wall-adhered films that are more stable and difficult to mobilize. Mechanistic analysis further indicates that the controlling parameters of mobilization differ across wettability states, reflecting the interplay between pore geometry, wettability, and interfacial forces. Based on phase diagrams constructed from simulation results, distinct regulation strategies were formulated for different wettability conditions: reducing IFT is most effective in strongly water-wet systems, a combined effect of viscosity enhancement and IFT reduction is required in neutral-wet systems, and achieving ultra-low IFT is essential in strongly oil-wet systems. Collectively, this work establishes viscosity and IFT thresholds as quantitative design criteria for surfactant flooding, providing both mechanistic understanding and practical guidance for surfactant formulation and injection optimization in chemical EOR.
Keywords: surfactant flooding, Enhanced Oil Recovery, Viscosity, Interfacial Tension, Wettability
Received: 05 Jul 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Hu, Chu, Sun and Lu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yingxue Hu, School of Human Settlement and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China
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