Construction and Properties Evaluation of the Binary Flooding System Based on Lipid Peptide

To enhance crude oil recovery under complex reservoir conditions and reduce the environmental impact of the oil displacement system, a biosurfactant lipid peptide (TH) was combined with four chemical surfactants. From these combinations, those capable of achieving an ultralow interfacial tension region (<10^–2 mN/m) were selected. The selected surfactant mixtures were then combined with polyacrylamide (HPAM) to construct a surfactant–polymer binary oil displacement system. The results showed that TH/OAB(2:1), TH/OAB(3:1), and TH/EAO(3:1) could reduce IFT to the ultralow interfacial tension region. Compound surfactants are easier to form mixed micelles than single surfactants, and the EACN of TH/OAB(2:1) and TH/EAO(3:1) is consistent with EACN_Oil, which can achieve higher surface activity at lower concentrations. The three compound surfactants have a wide range of ultralow interfacial tension concentrations and excellent antidilution performance. TH/OAB(2:1) and TH/EAO(3:1) have better antiformation adsorption performance than TH/OAB(3:1), and the oil washing rate of TH/OAB(2:1) is up to 80.30%. TH and OAB have spatial complementarity, which can increase the molecular packing density at the oil–water interface and reduce the IFT. In CaCl₂ and NaCl solutions, the IFT of the two binary flooding systems constructed by TH/OAB(2:1) and TH/EAO(3:1) and HPAM remained in the ultralow interfacial tension region, with excellent salt resistance. When aged in the reservoir for 90 days, the IFT slightly increased but the viscosity decreased significantly. Adding a viscosity retaining agent (JW) was required to maintain the viscosity of the system. In the simulated oil displacement experiment, the recovery improvement of the two binary oil displacement systems was higher than those of surfactant and polymer alone. This study provides a new idea for the alkali-free surfactant–polymer binary oil flooding system and provides theoretical support for the practical application of TH in tertiary oil recovery.