Experimental Studies of Cationic Surfactant Adsorption onto Carbonate Rocks

Adsorption is a unit operation in which dissolved constituents is removed from the solvent (water) by interphase transfer to the surfaces of an adsorbent particle. The basic objective of this paper is calculating adsorption density and modeling of the equilibria of adsorption processes on carbonate rocks. There has been very little study of surfactant adsorption on carbonate minerals. This paper describes the equilibrium adsorption was investigated by examining adsorption behavior in a system of solid phase carbonate and of an aqueous phase of surfactant. Effects on surfactant adsorption density for different surfactant concentration were conducted in on crushed rock as well as circulation tests through core samples. The range of initial surfactant concentrations were from 50 to 600 ppm in the crushed cores. CTAB surfactant used as a cationic surfactant. An adsorption isotherm is used to characterize the equilibria between the amount of adsorbate that accumulates on the adsorbent and the concentration of the dissolved adsorbate. The Langmuir adsorption isotherm, Freundlich isotherm used to describe equilibria. The equilibrium time was approximately one day. The rate of adsorption dependent on availability of surfactant in the system, it was found that the adsorption of surfactant increased with increasing surfactant concentration. The phenomenon of adsorption at solid/liquid interface is of major importance in the process of enhanced oil recovery with the application of surfactant.

Adsorption equilibrium; Kinetics; Natural surfactant; Conductivity;