INTRODUCTION OF COTTON GUM AS A NATURAL POLYMER TO ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY

Abstract

Polymer flooding as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method is widely utilized to improve water flooding and plays an important role during EOR process. Partial hydrolyzed poly acryl amide (HPAM) as one of the well known polymers is used in order to have a decrease water/oil mobility ratio in oil reservoirs. As this polymer is decomposed at reservoirs having high temperature and high salinity, the use of this polymer is limited. This study introduces cotton gum as a new natural polymer which can be used for polymer flooding. Cotton gum as a polysaccharide is obtained from the natural cottons. To compare this polymer with HPAM, related experiments including thermal decomposition and viscosity tests in same conditions were conducted and our experiments confirm that this polymer shows a good resistance against high salinities and temperatures