The Study of Drag Reduction Ability and Mechanical Degradation of Biopolymer in Water Injection System

Drag is characterized as a force that acting opposite the relative motion of an object through a fluid which lead to frictional pressure loss in pipeline fluid flow and Drag Reducing Agent (DRA) is a common solution of this problem. This research concerns only the application of water injection system due to the environmental concerns of the injection of the commercialized synthetic DRA into the formation because of its chemical contents. Thus, the CMC is synthesized with the objective to serve as a feasible alternative of synthetic DRAs. This study describes the synthesizing of biopolymer, Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), study the effectiveness of the synthesized CMC in drag reduction at different concentration and different flow rate, and observe the mechanical degradation of the synthesized CMC that causes the drop in its drag reduction performance. The residue of coconut fibre after the extraction of coconut milk or so called Coconut Residue (CR) is selected as the candidate for CMC extraction.