LITERATURE STUDY ON MODIFICATION OF STARCH FOR APPLICATION IN ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY

• Main Author: Austin Manurung, Theresia
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Subjects: Kimia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/59593
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Petroleum is the second most-consumed energy in Indonesia after coal. Based on an annual report conducted by SKK Migas in 2019, the need for oil as an energy source is predicted to reach 2.3 million barrels per day by 2030. However, in 2021, the total oil production only reaches 652.5 thousand barrels per day. The gap between oil production and consumption in Indonesia has prompted the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources to set a target of 1 million barrels per day by 2030. One of the government’s approaches to increase daily oil production is to hasten the application of Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (CEOR) technology. One method of CEOR is polymer injection. The polymer used as an EOR agent is expected to improve the viscosity of the injected fluid and exhibit thermal stability at reservoir temperature. Furthermore, to increase the oil sweeping efficiency, the polymer should exhibit a high mechanical stability under shear and a high salinity resistance. Herein, the polymer studied as an EOR agent was starch. Starch is a biopolymer which can be potentially applied as an EOR agent due to having a high viscosity in water (2108-9496 cP), showing a high thermal stability at temperature below 200 ?, its relatively cheap price, and its high abundance in nature. The challenge in utilizing starch as an EOR agent is that starch is insoluble in water at room temperature. To overcome this limitation, several modification techniques were studied in this literature study. Some techniques included the synthesis of ionic starch, graft copolymerization, crosslinking, the addition of nanoparticles, and the synthesis of starch nanogels. Based on the carried-out study, the suggested modification of starch is through the addition of nanoparticles combined with graft copolymerization and the addition of ionic groups. The addition of silica nanoparticles is to alter rock wettability and act as a crosslinking agent to provide higher intermolecular attraction. Graft copolymerization with acrylamide and acrylic acid are performed to enrich water absorption capacity due to the presence of carboxyl groups. The presence of positively charged quaternary ammonium group is to provide starch with the ability to exchange ions, thus exhibit resistance to salinity. Viscosity and recovery percentage data from the literature study demonstrate that the aforementioned combination techniques have a high possibility result in the a starch with high viscosity at room temperature, high resistance to salinity, high resistance to temperature increase, and yield high oil recovery percentage.