MEASUREMENT OF SHORT-TERM LOW DYNAMIC INTERFACIAL-TENSIONS - APPLICATION TO SURFACTANT ENHANCED ALKALINE FLOODING IN ENHANCED OIL-RECOVERY

The conventional spinning drop technique does not always provide a clear representation of dynamic interfacial tension behavior because it places a lower limit on the interfacial ages that can be examined. A modification of the conventional technique is described which extends the accessible range to interfacial ages as short as two seconds. By injecting an oil drop into an already spinning tube and simultaneously recording the injected drop image with a video camera, measurements can be made much more quickly than usual. This modification allows the lower limit of interfacial age measurement to be reduced from 1-2 min to two seconds. Maintaining the same drop volume and spinning velocity allows results from the conventional and extended techniques to be combined into a single representation. The application of this modified technique is illustrated for crude oil/surfactant enhanced alkaline systems of interest in enhanced oil recovery research. Such systems exhibit complex dynamic interfacial tension behavior including minima which vary in both the magnitude and the interfacial age at which they occur. With the extended technique a more complete characterization was obtained than would have been possible previously. © 1990.