Interfacial Tension Behavior of Ionic Liquid as Surfactant

Fear of depletion of one of the world’s most demanding source of energy, crude oil, has made
the petroleum industry more concern on sustaining the net volume of production. A crucial phase
in petroleum production is applying recovery method to the reservoir as to increase the
production of hydrocarbon. A lot of factors influencing the depletion of producing reservoir,
primarily because of the declination of reservoir pressure.
There are three steps in the recovery of oil. The process starts from primary oil recovery,
followed by secondary oil production and tertiary oil recovery will be the last attempt to take
place. Tertiary oil recovery or known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) will be emphasized by all
oil companies as this techniques offer prospects for the producing of 30 to 60 percent of the
reservoir's original oil in place. In view of this, surfactant-based chemical systems have been
reported by innumerous academic studies and technological operations throughout the years as
potential candidates for EOR activities. These chemical compounds are able to reduce interfacial
tensions (IFT) as well as to form and stabilize (o/w) or (w/o) emulsions thus allowing the residual
oil to flow. However, various parameters such as temperature, salinity and concentration of
surfactant should be taken into account as they affect the performance of surfactants.