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Surfactant losses by adsorption to rock surfaces make surfactant-based enhanced oil recovery economically less feasible. We investigated polyacrylate (PA) as a sacrificial agent in the reduction of anionic surfactant adsorption with focus on calcite surfaces by using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring. It was found that the adsorption of the anionic surfactant alcohol alkoxy sulfate (AAS) followed a Langmuir adsorption isotherm, and the adsorbed amount reached saturation above its critical micellar concentration. Adsorption of PA was a much slower process compared to AAS adsorption. Increasing the calcium ion concentration also increased the amount of AAS adsorbed as well as the mass increase rate of PA adsorption. Experimental results combined with density functional theory calculations indicated that calcium cation bridging was important for anionic surfactant AAS and PA adsorption to calcite surfaces. To effectively reduce the amount of surfactant adsorption, it was needed to preflush with PA, rather than by a simultaneous injection. Preflushing with 30 ppm of PA gave a reduction of AAS adsorption of 30% under high salinity (HS, 31,800 ppm) conditions, compared to 8% reduction under low salinity (LS, 3180 ppm) conditions. In the absence of PA, the amount of adsorbed AAS was reduced by already 50% upon changing from HS to LS conditions. Lower calcium ion concentrations, as under LS conditions, contributed to this observation. On different mineral surfaces, PA reduced the AAS adsorption in the order of alumina > calcite > silica. These results offer important insights into mitigating surfactant adsorption using PA polyelectrolyte as sacrificial agent and contribute to improved flooding strategies with reduced surfactant loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adsorption behavior of surfactants to rock surfaces is an important issue in oil recovery, especially in the process of surfactant flooding. The surfactant loss through adsorption to rock surfaces makes such process economically less feasible. Here, we investigated the adsorption behavior of anionic surfactants (alcohol alkoxy sulfate, AAS) onto silica with quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring. The results demonstrated that the surfactant adsorption followed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. Up to solution pH 10, surfactant adsorption slightly increased with increasing pH. The higher pH leads to more anionic surface sites for binding with an anionic surfactant with the help of a calcium cation bridging. The amount of anionic surfactant binding also increases with increasing calcium ion concentration up to 50 mM. It was found that sodium ions were able to exchange calcium ions near the silica surface, which would reduce the affinity for surfactant adsorption. The effect of the polyanion polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) on the anionic AAS adsorption was investigated to learn the possible competitive adsorptions. Indeed, this was found. Upon addition of 50 ppm PSS to a 0.05 wt% AAS containing solution, the adsorption of AAS was reduced by about 85 %. The obtained results show the interplay of different interacting species affecting the overall degree of anionic surfactant adsorption to silica surfaces. Optimal tuning of the process conditions according to these results will contribute to a more efficient use of anionic surfactants in enhanced oil recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]