The Effect of Surfactants on Vertical
Air/Water Flow for Prevention of
Liquid Loading
A. T. van Nimwegen and L. M. Portela, Delft University of Technology, and R. A. W. M. Henkes, Delft University of
Technology and Shell Projects and Technology
Summary
From field experience in the gas industry, it is known that
inject- ing surfactants at the bottom of a gas well can prevent
liquid load- ing. To better understand how the selection of the
surfactant influences the deliquification performance,
laboratory experi- ments of air/water flow at atmospheric
conditions were per- formed, in which two different surfactants
(a pure surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate, and a commercial
surfactant blend) were added to the water. In the experiments,
a high-speed camera was used to visualize the flow, and
pressure-gradient measurements were performed. Both
surfactants increase the pressure gradient at high gas-flow rates
and decrease the pressure gradient at low gas- flow rates. The
minimum in the pressure gradient moves to lower gas-flow
rates with increasing surfactant concentration. This is related to
the transition between annular flow and churn flow, which is
shifted to lower gas-flow rates because of the formation of an
almost stagnant foam substrate at the wall of the pipe. At high
surfactant concentration, it appears that the churn flow re-
gime is no longer present at all and that there is a direct
transition from annular flow to slug flow. The results also
show that the crit- ical micelle concentration, the equilibrium
surface tension, the dynamic surface tension, and the surface
elasticity are poor pre- dictors of the effect of the surfactant on
the flow.
Introduction
In gas wells, both gas and some liquid are produced (the liquid
in the form of water and gas condensate). When the reservoir
pres- sure is high, resulting in a high gas-production rate, the
gas veloc- ity in the production tubing is large enough to drag
the liquids to the surface. The flow regime in the pipe is
annular-dispersed; the liquid is contained in a liquid film at the
wall of the tubing and in entrained droplets in the gas core.
When the reservoir pressure declines over field life, the gas
velocity in the tubing decreases and the gas can no longer drag
the liquid along to the surface. Subse- quently, the liquid
accumulates at the bottom of the well, causing an increased
hydrostatic pressure gradient along the well, and thus an
increased backpressure on the reservoir. This can severely
limit or even completely stop the gas production (Lea et al.
2003).
From experience in the gas industry, it is known that the
injec- tion of surfactants at the bottom of the well can prevent
liquid loading (Campbell et al. 2001). One can find many
examples of successful deliquification of gas wells by use of
surfactants in the literature (Jelinek and Schramm 2005;
Schinagl et al. 2007; Bremner et al. 2010). In a recent
questionnaire among gas-well operators in The Netherlands
(Yavuz 2011), it was determined that the use of surfactants is
the most commonly used deliquifica- tion technique. One can
also apply surfactants in shallow gas wells, although for these
wells more deliquification techniques, including subsurface
pumps, are economically viable (Reinicke et al. 2007).
Furthermore, for shallow wells, the contribution of
Copyright V
C 2016 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 164095) was accepted for presentation at the SPE International
Symposium on Oilfield Chemistry, The Woodlands, Texas, USA, 8–10 April 2013, and
revised for publication. Original manuscript received for review 17 September 2013. Revised
manuscript received for review 3 April 2015. Paper peer approved 9 June 2015.
488
the flow in the well tubing to the total pressure losses (which
includes, for example, the flow from the reservoir to the
bottom hole) is relatively small, and the additional production
caused by the surfactants will be less than for deeper wells.
Even though sur- factants are often applied as a deliquification
technique, under- standing of the influence of these surfactants
on the multiphase flow in the well is still poor.
Nodal analysis, in which the gas well is considered to be a
sys- tem of two components in series, is often used to
understand liq- uid loading of gas wells. The first of the two
components is the flow of gas from the reservoir to the bottom
of the well tubing. The difference between the pressure in the
reservoir and the pres- sure in the bottom hole increases with
increasing gas-flow rate. Therefore, as shown in Fig. 1, the
reservoir curve (also called the inflow-performance curve)
shows a decreasing bottomhole pres- sure as the gas-flow rate
increases.
The second of the two components is the flow of gas (and
liq- uid) from the bottom hole to the surface through the well
tubing. At large gas-flow rates, in which liquid loading does
not occur, the difference between the bottomhole pressure and
the surface pressure increases with increasing gas-flow rate. At
low gas-flow rates, because of liquid-loading problems, the
difference between the bottomhole pressure and the surface
pressure increases with decreasing gas-flow rate. In between,
there is a minimum in the pressure difference. The bottomhole
pressure as a function of the gas-flow rate in the well tubing is
given by the tubing-perform- ance curve (TPC), which is also
shown in Fig. 1. Production can only occur when the reservoir
curve and the TPC intersect. Because operation in the liquid-
loading regime (at gas-flow rates below the minimum in the
TPC) is unstable, one should maintain operation at gas-flow
rates above this minimum.
When the surfactants are injected at the bottom of the well,
the liquid will start to foam, thereby changing the
hydrodynamics of the flow in the production tubing. This leads
to a change in the TPC, which creates stable operating points
at lower reservoir pressure. To investigate this change in
hydrodynamics, we previ- ously performed laboratory
experiments with air/water flow with and without surfactants
in a vertical pipe at atmospheric pressure and at room
temperature (Van Nimwegen et al. 2015a, b). The results show
that surfactants decrease the pressure gradient at low gas-flow
rates. The minimum in the TPC can even become a plateau,
with an almost constant pressure gradient across a range of
gas-flow rates. The reduction of the pressure gradient by the
surfactants at low gas-flow rates occurs because the flow
becomes more regular, which causes a decrease in the
hydrostatic pressure gradient.
However, our previous work considers only one surfactant.
To evaluate the importance of surfactant selection, in this work
we will investigate the effect of two different surfactants on
the flow. The effect will be shown qualitatively with
visualization using a high-speed camera and quantitatively
with measurements of the pressure gradient. The results will
provide insight into the impor- tance of surfactant selection for
gas-well deliquification.
Air/Water Flow in Vertical Pipes
In air/water pipe flow, the flow morphology is strongly
dependent on the gas- and liquid-flow rates. The flow
morphology has been
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Tubing performance
Bottomhole Pressure curve (TPC)
Stable operating point
Unstable
Reservoir
operating points
curve
Reservoir curve
(declined pressure)
Gas Flow Rate
Fig. 1—Schematic showing the TPC and the inflow performance
curve.
classified into different flow patterns, for horizontal (Taitel
and Duckler 1976), vertical (Taitel et al. 1980), and inclined
flow (Barnea 1987). In this work, we focus on vertical flow,
for which
the four commonly defined flow patterns are presented in Fig.
2.
At large gas flow rates, there is an annular flow, in which
gas is the continuous phase, and liquid is present in a film at
the wall, and in droplets in the gas core. In the annular flow
regime, larger roll waves and small ripple waves are present at
the liquid inter- face. As the gas flow rate decreases, the gas is
unable to drag the liquid upward continuously, which marks
the transition to the churn flow regime. In the churn flow
regime, the liquid film flows downward intermittently, and the
morphology of the flow becomes more complex, as waves on
the liquid film grow in size and large liquid ligaments are
entrained by the gas. Large, aerated waves, called flooding
waves, appear that cause the upward trans- port of the liquid
(Hewitt and Jayanti 1993). Liquid loading is related to the
transition between annular flow and churn flow.
At even lower gas flow rates, the liquid becomes the
continu- ous phase, resulting in a slug flow, in which liquid
slugs are alter- nated with long Taylor bubbles. At even lower
liquid flow rates, the gas is contained in small bubbles rising
upward in the liquid phase; this is the bubbly flow regime.
The morphology of the flow has a large effect on the
pressure gradient. The pressure gradient for both single-phase
air flow and for air-water flow in a 50-mm diameter vertical
pipe is shown in Fig. 3 as a function of the superficial gas
velocity (usg). Superfi-
Bubbly Flow Slug Flow
Fig. 2—Overview of the different flow patterns occurring in vertical gas/liquid pipe flow. The gas-flow rate increases from left to
right.
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cial velocities are equal to the volumetric flow rate divided by
the pipe cross-section area. For single-phase flow, the pressure
gradi- ent increases with increasing gas flow rate. For air-water
flow, at large gas flow rates, in the annular flow regime, the
pressure gra- dient increases with increasing usg. At low usg, in
the churn flow regime, the pressure gradient increases with
decreasing gas flow rate. The minimum in the pressure
gradient, between these two regimes, is closely related to the
transition between churn and an- nular flow, which is also
indicated in Fig. 3.
One can understand the behavior of the pressure gradient
from a balance of forces on the gas core along a length dx,
which yields
@p
—ag — agqgg — Fi ¼ 0: .............................................. ð1Þ
@x
In this equation, a indicates the holdup, q the density, and p
the pressure. Furthermore, g is the gravitational acceleration,
and the subscripts g and l indicate the gas and the liquid phase,
respec- tively. Fi is the interfacial friction per unit volume
exerted by the liquid phase on the gas, and can be rewritten in
analogy with gas flow in a pipe with a rough wall:
4ðD — 2dÞ2 q gðug — uiÞ
2
4 qgu2 g
Fi ¼ fi = D fi 2 : . . . . . . . ð2Þ
D2 2
In this equation, ug is the actual velocity of the gas, ui is the
velocity at the gas-liquid interface, D is the pipe diameter, d is
the thickness of the liquid film at the wall, and fi is the friction
factor of the interface. Note that we neglected the forces from
entrained droplets compared with the forces from the liquid
film at the wall. Because ug is usually much larger than ui, the
latter can often be neglected. Furthermore, d is usually much
smaller than D, such that it can also be neglected. At large gas
flow rates, in the annular flow regime, the flow morphology is
relatively regular, and fi is relatively small; the pressure
gradient is mostly proportional to u2. In the churn flow
regime, the flow morphology becomes increasingly irregular
asg usg decreases, leading to a large increase in fi and in the
pressure gradient with decreasing usg.
We can also perform a balance of forces over the entire
pipe cross section along a section of length dx, assuming that
the entire wall of the pipe is covered with the liquid film (i.e.,
there is no contact between the gas and the pipe wall) from
which we obtain
@p
— — alqlg — agqgg — Fl ¼ 0:......................................ð3Þ
@x
In Eq. 3, Fl is the frictional force between the liquid and the
wall per unit volume. Eq. 3 shows that the total pressure
gradient consists of a hydrostatic component al qlg and a
wall frictional
Churn Flow Annular Flow
489

Churn flow Annular flow
1200
Pressure Drop (Pa/m)
1000
Pressure-drop minimum
800
600
400
200
5 10 15 20
usg (m/s)
Fig. 3—The measured TPC for single-phase air flow and for air/
water flow without surfactants; the transition between annular
flow and churn flow is indicated by the dashed line.
component Fl. From this perspective, in the annular flow
regime, the pressure gradient increases with increasing usg as a
result of the increasing wall friction, because the liquid at the
wall moves upward faster. In the churn flow regime, it is the
hydrostatic com- ponent of the pressure gradient that increases
sharply with decreasing usg.
Because of its relevance to liquid loading, the annular-flow-
to- churn-flow transition was studied extensively. The Turner
crite- rion (Turner et al. 1969), often used to predict the
loading point of gas wells, determines the critical gas velocity
of the onset of liq- uid loading uc from the reversal of the
largest droplets in the flow:
" #1=4
40ðql — qg Þcg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ð4Þ
uc ¼ :
qgCD
Here, ql and qg are the liquid and gas density, respectively; c is
the surface tension; g is the gravitational acceleration; and CD
is the drag coefficient of the droplets, assumed to be equal to
0.44 for these large droplets. The largest droplet size is
assumed to cor- respond to a Weber number of 30:
q gug2d
We ¼ ¼ 30: ..........................................................ð5Þ
c modulus of E represents the dilational elas- ticity. The
For our setup, the Turner criterion predicts the onset of
liquid loading at a gas velocity of 15 m/s, when the largest
droplets in the flow are 8 mm in diameter. This velocity
corresponds to the transition between annular and churn flow
in our setup. However,
Van’t Westende (2007) found from experiments in the same
flow loop, as used in the present study, that such large droplets
do not
occur in the gas core, and furthermore, that it is the liquid film
that starts to reverse at the transition to churn flow. However,
new results show that near the gas/liquid interface much-larger
drop- lets exist. The interplay between these larger droplets and
the liq- uid film is essential to understanding the onset of liquid
loading (Khosla et al. 2013). To better understand the
influence of the sur- factant on the interfacial morphology of
the liquid film, in this work, high-speed movies of the flow are
made.
Surfactants and Foaming
Surfactants are molecules with a hydrophobic and a
hydrophilic part, and therefore they preferentially adsorb at the
air/water inter- face. In the process, they decrease the surface
tension of the water, usually by up to a factor of 2 to 3
(DeGennes et al. 2004). The equilibrium surface tension
decreases with increasing surfactant concentration, until the
critical micelle concentration is reached. Above this
concentration, the surface and bulk concentrations of single
surfactant molecules (monomers) no longer increase. Instead,
additional surfactants that are added form micelles, which
490
are aggregates of surfactants in which the hydrophilic headgroups
Single-phase air flow shelter the hydrophobic tails.
Air/water flow
As shown in the Turner criterion, in which the velocity of
the onset of flow reversal only scales with the one-fourth
power of the surface tension (c1=4), this reduction of the
surface tension is not sufficient to explain the difference in the
behavior of the flow as a result of the addition of surfactants.
Furthermore, because the largest structures at the air/water
interface are inertial waves and not capillary waves, a change
in surface tension is not expected to cause large changes in the
interfacial morphology.
The surface tension of a surfactant solution is not merely a
static value, as is the case for pure liquids. When a new
gas/liquid interface is created, the surface tension is equal to
that of water. Because surfactants have a hydrophobic and a
hydrophilic part, they will preferentially adsorb at the air/liquid
interface. There- fore, as time progresses, more surfactants
25 30 35 40 diffuse to the surface, in which they are adsorbed at the air-
liquid interface. As a conse-
quence, the surface tension decreases until equilibrium is reached
between the interface and the bulk liquid. This development of
the surface tension in time is called the dynamic surface tension.
These dynamic effects at the interface also lead to a surface
elasticity (Miller et al. 2001). When a gas/liquid interface of a
sur- factant solution at equilibrium with the bulk solution is
expanded, the surfactant density at the interface decreases,
leading to an increase of the surface tension. Over time,
because of the adsorp- tion of surfactants at the interface, the
surface tension returns to its original value. These processes at
the interface lead to a sur- face dilational elasticity and a
surface dilational viscosity. In mea- surement of these surface
rheological properties, the area of the interface is varied
sinusoidally with a frequency x, and the sur- face tension is
measured in time. The (complex) surface dilational modulus is
given by
dc
E¼ : ............................. ð6Þ
d ln A
Because of the dynamic behavior of the interface, in general,
the surface tension c(t) and the interfacial area A(t) are out of
phase, leading to complex values of E. Furthermore, E depends
on x: In the low-frequency limit, the variation of the surface
area is slower than the diffusion of surfactant molecules from
the bulk to the surface, and the surface tension is
approximately constant. At large x, there is no time for the
surfactants to diffuse to the surface within an oscillation
period, and E will be largest. In this last case, the behavior of
the interface is fully elastic, and E will be real. In general, the
dilational viscosity is related to the phase difference between
the interfacial area and the surface-tension oscillations. As
shown by Myrvold and Hansen (1998), the dilational elasticity
is given by
c
jEj ¼ a
; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ð7Þ
Aa=Ao
where ca and Aa are the surface tension and interfacial-area
ampli- tudes, respectively, and Ao is the average jinterfacial
j¼
area. At zero concentration (for pure water), the surface tension
is always the same regardless of changes in the interfacial jarea,
j
and E 0. At large surfactant concentrations, diffusion is very
quick, and E is low. In between, there is a maximum in the
elasticity, in which there are sufficient surfactants to obtain
changes in surface ten- sion, but diffusion is not yet so fast that
deviations from the equi- librium surface tension are quickly
restored to the equilibrium. A model of this behavior was
developed by Lucassen and van den Tempel (1972).
The most important effect of these surfactants is that the
dynamic effects at the interface outlined in the preceding allow
the creation of a stable foam, thereby significantly reducing the
effective density of the liquid phase. The generation of foam
requires the agitation of the surfactant solution, such that air
bub- bles are entrained within the liquid. In the literature,
several meth- ods of agitation are known. In laboratory tests in
the gas industry, often a foam column is used, in which gas
is sparged through a
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Fig. 4—A photograph of the setup (left) and a schematic of the setup (right) showing the location of the pressure sensors and the
high-speed camera.
frit at the bottom of the column. The foam carries liquid to the
top of the column, and the amount of liquid that can be
transported in this way is assumed to be a measure of the
unloading efficiency of the surfactant (Nguyen 2009).
Another way of creating foam is through the Ross-Miles
test. Here, a volume of surfactant solution is sprayed through a
nozzle on top of another volume of the solution. The amount
of foam generated in this process is recorded (ASTM 2007). In
our setup, the foam is agitated by the hydrodynamics of the
flow. The agita- tion causes air to be entrained into the liquid
phase through the formation of bubbles, droplets, and
ligaments. Because the agita- tion is caused by the interactions
between the air and the water, it is dependent on Fi, the
interfacial friction. As shown in Eq. 1, the interfacial friction is
proportional to the pressure gradient (there is a factor ag
difference). Because in gas wells, the same flow pat- terns
occur, as in our experiments (Lea et al. 2003), we expect Fi,
and therefore the agitation of the liquid phase, to be similar in
actual gas wells and in our experiments.
The effectiveness of a surfactant as a foaming agent is
depend- ent on the properties of the interfaces of the surfactant
solution, such as the decrease of the equilibrium surface
tension, the diffu- sion characteristic of the surfactants or the
dynamic surface tension (Rosen and Hua 1988; Rosen et al.
1991), the elastic properties of the interfaces caused by the
surfactants, and the effect of the sur- factants on the disjoining
pressure (Myers 2005). In this work, the equilibrium surface
tension, the dynamic surface tension, and the surface elasticity
of the surfactant solutions are measured.
From previous measurements in our flow loop, we found
that the size of the structures in the morphology of the liquid
film and the amount of foam created increase with decreasing
gas flow rate and increasing liquid flow rate. The foam is able
to suppress the largest structures of the flow (i.e., the roll
waves in annular flow and the flooding waves in churn flow).
It is also able to decrease the entrainment of droplets from the
liquid film. Effectively, the foam is able to shift the transition
between annular and churn flow to lower gas velocities.
Correspondingly, the pressure gradient at low gas-flow rates is
decreased (Van Nimwegen et al. 2015a, b).
To verify how this behavior is affected by the surfactant
that is used, in this work, experiments with two different
surfactants are performed. For each surfactant, different
concentrations are con- sidered. The goal of the research is to
observe and quantify the
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Water to
tank/drain Air
30D
30D
10D
P
40D
P
120D
Annular
water inlet
Water from
tank/tap 20D
Air from
compressor
influence of both the surfactant type and the surfactant
concentra- tion on the hydrodynamics of the air/water flow.
Experimental Setup
In this section, the flow loop and the experiments used for the
sur- factant characterization are described.
Flow Loop. The experimental setup consists of a 12-m-long
ver- tical pipe with a 50-mm internal diameter that is operated
at ambi- ent conditions. The pipe is made of Perspex, making it
transparent and allowing visualization of the flow with a high-
speed camera placed outside the setup. A photograph and a
schematic of the setup are presented in Fig. 4.
The air flow is regulated through a mass-flow controller
(M1W D6383) with a range of 0 to 5,000 L/min and an
accuracy of 2% of the measured value. The air is introduced at
the bottom of the pipe, and water is injected through an
annulus 1 m from the bottom. The water flow rate is regulated
through a valve (Badger RC 200 with a size of 1/4 in.). With a
proportional-integral-drive controller, the valve is connected to
two turbine flowmeters (Equ- flow PFA), with ranges of 0.2 to
2 L/min and 2 to 20 L/min and an accuracy of 2% of the
measured value.
In the experiments without surfactants, the injected water
comes directly from the tap. After the water passes through the
setup, it is disposed of through the drain. When experiments
with surfactants are performed, first, a 50-L surfactant solution
is pre- pared in a tank placed near the setup. Subsequently, the
water is pumped from the tank, through the flow control, and
into the setup. After passing through the setup, the water flows
back to the tank (i.e., the surfactant solution is recirculated).
Note that the water is not foaming when it is injected into the
setup; all foam shown in the visualization results is created
through the hydrodynamics of the multiphase flow inside the
pipe. At the end of the pipe, a hose with a large (160 mm)
diameter is attached, preventing the foam from flowing out
from the top of the setup along with the air. At the end of this
hose, the air is released into the atmosphere.
Three pressure sensors (type UNIK 5000 by General
Electric with premium accuracy, a range of 70-mbar gauge,
and a fre- quency response of approximately 1 kHz) are placed
along the
491
 1000 W Lamps
Camera (1000 fps)
Transparent sheet
Fig. 5—Setup used in the recording of the high-speed movies.
flow loop, at 6, 8, and 10 m from the water injection. The
results for the pressure gradient presented in this paper are
from the pres- sure sensors at 8 and 10 m from the water
injection. The third sen- sor is used to determine the flow
development. Results show that the air/water flow is developed
at 6 m from the water injection, whereas flow with surfactants
takes a longer distance to develop at higher gas velocities.
When the gas velocity is below 20 m/s, which is the range in
which liquid loading occurs and in which we are most
interested, the flow with surfactants is essentially devel- oped
6 m from the water injection (Van Nimwegen et al. 2015a).
Visualization of the flow is performed with an Olympus I-
Speed 2 camera, capable of making movies at 1,000 frames/sec
at its max- imum resolution of 800 600. The camera is placed
×
at a distance of approximately 1 m from the pipe, 8.5 m above
the water injec- tion. Two 1,000-W lamps are used to
illuminate the pipe from the back. A diffusive sheet is placed
between the lamps and the pipe to avoid glare. A schematic of
this setup is presented in Fig. 5.
Surfactant Characterization. In this work, two surfactants are
used. The first is a proprietary surfactant product (Trifoam 820
Block; Oilchem GmbH, Dessau-Roßlau, Germany), which will
be referred to as the “commercial foamer” in the remainder of
this pa- per. This product has been used successfully to
deliquify gas wells in the field and was selected as a reference
case, showing the behavior of a surfactant with the correct
properties to deliquify a gas well. Besides a surfactant, the
main additives in this product are a corrosion inhibitor and a
freezing-point depressurizer. Concentra- tions of the
commercial foamer always indicate the concentration of the
total product, and not just of its surfactant components.
As a second surfactant, SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate,
BioUl- tra, 20% solution in H 2O; Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis,
USA) is
75
70
Surface Tension (mN/m)
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
101 102
Concentration (ppm)
Fig. 7—Equilibrium surface tension of the commercial foamer (left) and SDS (right), measured with a du Noüy ring tensiometer.
492
Fig. 6—Maximum-bubble-pressure tensiometer used to mea-
sure the dynamic surface tension.
used. This is the most-studied surfactant in literature (Myers
2005), and it is chosen in the present study because it has a
differ- ent dynamic surface tension than the commercial
foamer, as is shown in the next section. Note that, for the
dynamic and equilib- rium surface-tension experiments for the
commercial foamer and for SDS, solutions were made using
demineralized water. In the flow-loop experiments for the
commercial foamer, solutions with tap water are made,
whereas for SDS, solutions with demineral- ized water are
considered, because SDS is incompatible with the water
chemistry of tap water. More information on this is pre- sented
in a separate section.
To measure the equilibrium surface tension of the
surfactants, a du Noüy ring tensiometer is used. This
tensiometer determines the force that the liquid exerts on a
platinum ring as it is pulled upward through the air/liquid
interface. Because the area of the liquid interface increases
when it is pulled upward by the ring and it takes time for
surfactants to migrate to the surface, one should pull the ring
upward very slowly to ensure that dynamic effects do not
affect the measurements. The technique is described in more
detail by Zuidema and Waters (1941). For the measurements
with the commercial foamer, a Krüss educational
tensiometer with an accuracy of 63 mN/m was used. For
SDS, a Krüss K9 tensiometer was used with an accuracy of 61
mN/m.
The dynamic surface tension (DST) is measured with a
Sinter- face BPA-1S maximum-bubble-pressure tensiometer,
shown in Fig. 6. This device creates bubbles by blowing air
though a capil- lary. The surface tension at the bubble
interface is obtained
75
70
Surface Tension (mN/m)
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
103 101 102 103 104
Concentration (ppm)
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 75
70
65
60
 (mN/m)
55
500 ppm
50
1000 ppm
2000 ppm
45
3000 ppm
40
10−3 10−2 10−1 100 101
t (s)
Fig. 8—DST of the commercial foamer (left) and SDS (right) for different concentrations.
through measurement of the Laplace pressure, when the bubble
is a hemisphere with a radius equal to that of the capillary.
Varying the gas-flow rate through the capillary changes the
lifetime of the interface: At higher flow rates, it takes less time
before the bubble is spherical. In this way, one can measure the
development of the surface tension in time. In this work,
interface lifetimes between 1 millisecond and 10 seconds are
considered. This technique is explained in more detail by
Fainerman et al. (2004).
The surface elasticity is measured with a Sinterface PAT-1
drop-profile tensiometer. In this device, a droplet with a
volume of 12 lm is created at the end of a capillary.
Subsequently, a pho- tograph of the droplet is made every half
a second, and the surface tension of the air-liquid interface is
determined from the shape of the droplet. After the surface
tension has reached its equilibrium value, the volume of the
droplet is oscillated with an amplitude of 7% of the droplet
volume, at frequencies between 10 mHz and 50 mhz. Note that
the frequency of the oscillation should be signifi- cantly lower
than the frequency at which the surface tension is measured to
accurately evaluate the development of the surface tension.
From the amplitude of the surface-tension variation, finally,
the surface elasticity is determined, according to Eq. 7. A
general overview of this technique is presented in Loglio et al.
(2001) and in Ravera et al. (2010).
Results of the Surfactant Characterization. Fig. 7 shows the
equilibrium surface tension of the commercial foamer and the
equilibrium surface tension of SDS as a function of
concentration (given in ppm). For the commercial foamer, the
equilibrium sur- face tension decreases to approximately 35
mN/m when the con- centration is increased. The critical
micelle concentration (CMC), above which the surface tension
no longer decreases with increas- ing concentration, is
approximately 500 ppm. For SDS, a similar decrease in surface
tension is obtained. However, the CMC is sig- nificantly higher
and is equal to approximately 1700 ppm. Note that there is a
dip in the surface tension of SDS near the CMC. This is caused
by impurities of the SDS, mostly consisting of dodecanol,
which can have a significant effect on the surface ac- tivity
(Fainerman et al. 2010).
The results for the DST of the two surfactants are shown in
Fig. 8. For the commercial foamer, the equilibrium surface ten-
sion no longer changes for concentrations above 500 ppm.
How- ever, the figure shows that the DST still changes
significantly above this concentration. At 3,000 ppm, the
surface tension at a surface lifetime of 10 seconds is more than
20 mN/m lower than at the CMC. Note that, at a surface
lifetime of 10 seconds, the equilibrium surface tension is not
yet reached for the concentra- tions shown here. If the
measurements had been continued, for each of the
concentrations, a surface tension of 35 mN/m would eventually
have been reached.
For SDS, several concentrations below the CMC are consid-
ered. The concentrations are chosen on the basis of the
behavior in the flow loop, discussed in the next sections. The
results at the highest concentration show that the equilibrium
surface tension is
April 2016 SPE
Journal
75
70
65
60
 (mN/m)
55
300 ppm
50
590 ppm
890 ppm
45
1180 ppm
40
102 10−3 10−2 10−1 100 101 102
t (s)
not reached for either of the surfactants within the
measurement time. But, the most-striking aspect is that at the
shortest lifetime considered here, 1 millisecond, the surface
tension of the SDS so- lution is already significantly lower
than that of water. For the commercial foamer, this is not the
case. This difference in behav- ior between the two surfactants
is the reason for the selection of SDS as a second surfactant.
Fig. 9 shows the measurements of the surface elasticity of
the commercial foamer and SDS. The measurement range in
the flow- loop experiments is indicated in the figures by the
dashed lines. From the left figure for the commercial foamer,
one can observe that all flow-loop measurements in this work
are performed at concentrations above the maximum in the
surface elasticity; for increasing concentration, the surface
elasticity decreases. The val- ues of the elasticity are larger
than for SDS, and the frequency de- pendence is also larger.
For SDS, the measurement range in the flow loop is mostly at
concentrations below the maximum in the surface elasticity:
For increasing concentration, the surface elas- ticity increases.
Furthermore, the value of the surface elasticity is lower for
SDS than for the commercial foamer. This might be related to
the lower DST for SDS at low timescales; deviations of the
surface tension from equilibrium are quickly decreased. Table 1
gives an overview of the different surfactant concentrations in
the experiments.
Pressure-Gradient Measurements
In this section, results of the pressure-gradient measurements
are given for the surfactants and concentrations summarized in
Table
1. Each tubing-performance curve (TPC) was measured by
decreasing the superficial gas velocity from a maximum value
of approximately 38 m/s until 1–7 m/s, depending on the
measure- ment. Unlike for gas wells, in which the bottomhole
pressure is measured, in the TPCs for the experimental setup,
the average pressure gradient is measured as a function of the
superficial gas velocity. During these measurements, the
superficial liquid veloc- ity is fixed at usl 10 mm/s unless
indicated otherwise. First, the effect of the surfactant
concentration is¼ investigated. Subse- quently, TPCs were
obtained at a constant concentration for three liquid-flow rates.
Effect of Concentration. Commercial Foamer. In the left
graph of Fig. 10, the measured TPCs are given for the
commercial foamer at different concentrations. The results
show that the sur- factant increases the average pressure
gradient at high gas-flow rates. This increase becomes larger
when the surfactant concentra- tion is increased. Fig. 11 shows
that at these high surfactant con- centrations, not only the
average pressure gradient, but also the root-mean-square (rms)
value of the pressure-gradient fluctuations is increased. As
stated in earlier work (Van Nimwegen et al. 2015b), this is
because of the increase of the interfacial friction caused by the
foam forming on the interface of the liquid film.
493
 25 25
10 mHz 10 mHz
50 mHz 50 mHz

Surface Elasticity (mN/m)

Surface Elasticity (mN/m)
20 20

15 15

10 10

5 5

0 0
500 1000 2000 4000 100 1000 10000
Concentration (ppm) Concentration (ppm)

Fig. 9—Surface elasticity of the commercial foamer (left) and of SDS (right) as a function of concentration for two different frequen-
cies of the interfacial-area oscillation. The dashed lines indicate the measurement range in the flow-loop measurements. The
measurements for SDS are taken from Kawale (2012).

Commercial Foamer SDS

Concentration (ppm) Concentration (× CMC) Concentration (ppm) Concentration (× CMC)
500 1 200 0.11
1,000 2 390 0.22
2,000 4 590 0.33
3,000 6 790 0.44
Table 1—Overview of the surfactant concentrations used in the large-scale flow-loop experiments.

1600 1600
air/water
1400 1400 200 ppm
390 ppm
1200 1200 590 ppm
890 ppm
1000 1000
dp/dx (Pa/m)

dp/dx (Pa/m)

800 800

600 600

400 air/water 400

500 ppm
1000 ppm
200 200
2000 ppm
3000 ppm
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
usg (m/s) usg (m/s)

Fig. 10—TPCs (with the average pressure gradient on the vertical axis) for the commercial foamer (left) and SDS (right) at different
concentrations. For comparison, the TPC for tap water without surfactants is also given. In all measurements, usl ¼ 10 mm/s.

400 400
air/water
rms Pressure−Gradient Fluctuations (Pa/m)

rms Pressure−Gradient Fluctuations (Pa/m)

500 ppm
350 350 air/water
1000 ppm
2000 ppm 200 ppm
300 3000 ppm 300 390 ppm
590 ppm
250 250 890 ppm

200 200

150 150

100 100

50 50

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
usg (m/s) usg (m/s)

Fig. 11—The rms pressure fluctuations of the commercial foamer (left) and SDS (right) as a function of the gas-flow rate, for differ-
ent concentrations at usl ¼ 10 mm/s.

494 April 2016 SPE

Journal
 The most-interesting effect of the surfactant occurs at low
gas flow rates. At the critical micelle concentration (CMC)
(500 ppm), the minimum of the pressure-gradient shifts
slightly toward lower superficial gas velocities, whereas the
pressure gradient at this minimum is slightly increased. More
importantly, at usg < 15 m/s, the pressure gradient is decreased
by the surfactants. The effect of the surfactant becomes
stronger at a concentration of 1,000 ppm, in which the pressure
gradient is essentially constant for superficial gas velocities
between 7 and 21 m/s. In a gas well, such behavior would
make it possible to produce at much-lower gas flow rates. The
decrease in the total pressure gradient is solely caused by a
decrease in hydrostatic head, whereas the frictional pressure
gradi- ent always increases when surfactants are added (Van
Nimwegen et al. 2015b).
When the surfactant concentration is increased above
1,000 ppm, the pressure gradient between usg¼ 7 and 21 m/s
increases with increasing surfactant concentration. Note that a
local minimum in the pressure gradient forms at ump
¼ 21 m/s,At
which the pressure gradient for air/water flow is minimum.
in
gas flow rates below ump, the transition to churn flow leads to
an increased agitation of the liquid phase, and therefore to
increased formation of foam. The additional foam increases fi
and therefore the total pressure gradient. At even lower
concentrations, the lower density of the foam allows the foam
to be dragged upward more easily than water, keeping the flow
very regular compared with air/water flow. Therefore, fi does
not increase that much at lower usg, and the pressure gradient
decreases again. Note that at a surfactant concentration of
3,000 ppm, the pressure gradient still decreases at superficial
gas velocities below 6.5 m/s, indicating a minimum at an even
lower gas flow rate. Fig. 11 shows that the rms fluctuations of
the pressure gradient at low gas flow rates, caused by the
churning of the liquid, are also decreased signifi- cantly after
the injection of surfactants. However, above a concen- tration
of 1000 ppm, the pressure-gradient fluctuations are not
suppressed further.
Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS). In the right graph in Fig. 10,
the TPCs for SDS are shown for the concentrations listed in
Table
1. Qualitatively, the results for SDS and the commercial
foamer are very similar. Both surfactants increase the pressure
gradient at high gas-flow rates, whereas at low gas-flow rates,
the pressure gradient is decreased. For both surfactants, in a
range of concen- trations, the pressure gradient is almost
constant for usg 7 to 20 m/s. Note, however, ¼ that a
significantly lower concentration of SDS is required (390 ppm,
or 22% of the CMC) to reach this con- stant pressure gradient
than for the commercial foamer (1,000 ppm, or 200% of the
CMC). This shows that both the abso- lute concentration and
the concentration relative to the CMC are bad predictors of the
effect of the surfactant on the flow.
There is one major difference between the results for SDS
and the results for the commercial foamer: At large gas-flow
rates, the pressure gradient for SDS is much larger than for the
commercial foamer. This indicates a rougher interface of the
film, which could be caused by increased foam formation. This
could be related to the lower values of the DST at short time
scales for SDS. At large usg, entrainment of air might only
occur for very short times, requiring fast diffusion of surfactant
to the bubble surface to gen- erate foam.
Because, for SDS, measurements were made up to lower usg
than for the commercial foamer, the results more clearly show
that the minimum in the pressure gradient shifts to lower usg
for increasing concentrations. At the largest concentration
of 890 ppm, the pressure gradient is lowest at usg 1 m/s, and
with a value of 350 Pa/m is lower than for = air/water flow at
ump. This shows that the minimum in the pressure gradient is
shifted from usg 21 to 1.1 m/s, a decrease of approximately a
factor 20. Also for the other concentrations, the pressure
¼
gradient is lower at usg 1.1 m/s than at usg 2.1 m/s. In the next
section, the flow visualization is used to give an explanation of
this¼phenomenon. Note that¼ all TPCs that are considered in this
work, even though the pressure gradient differs a great deal at
the lowest gas flow rates considered here, will all converge
to the hydrostatic
April 2016 SPE
Journal
pressure gradient of water (approximately 10,000 Pa/m) at
usg ¼
0 m/s.
In the right graph in Fig. 11, the rms of the pressure-
gradient fluctuations in the SDS measurements is given. As
was also the case for the commercial foamer, the pressure-
gradient fluctuations increase for high gas-flow rates when the
surfactant is added. At low gas-flow rates, the surfactants
reduce the pressure-gradient fluctuations; the reduction is
largest at a concentration of 390 ppm. This is the
concentration at which there is a constant pressure gradient for
a large range of usg. Such behavior was also observed for the
commercial foamer, in which a concentration of 1,000 ppm led
to both a constant pressure gradient for a large range of usg and
the lowest pressure-gradient fluctuations. Note that for the
highest concentrations of SDS, 590 and 890 ppm, the pressure-
gradient fluctuations are relatively high at the minimum of the
pressure gradient (usg 2.2 and 1.1 m/s, respectively), whereas
for the other concentrations, the pressure-gradient fluctu-
ations are low at the minimum.¼
Overall, the results for SDS and the commercial foamer are
very similar: Only the surfactant concentration at which these
results occur differs between the surfactants. To model the
flow, we would like to know the effect of the surfactants at a
certain concentration. However, the results for Trifoam and
SDS show that (1) the absolute concentration is not a good
predictor of the effect of the surfactants in the flow loop and
(2) the concentration relative to the CMC is also not a good
predictor of the effect of the surfactants. Furthermore, the
equilibrium surface tension at the lower concentrations for
SDS is lower than for the commercial foamer, whereas results
in the large-scale setup are similar, indi- cating that (3) the
equilibrium surface tension is also not a good predictor of the
effect of the surfactants in the flow loop. Further- more, for
SDS, the surface elasticity increases with increasing
concentration in the measurement range, whereas, for the com-
mercial foamer, the surface elasticity decreases with increasing
concentration; therefore, (4) the surface elasticity is not a good
predictor of the effect of the surfactant either. Furthermore, the
behavior of the dynamic surface tension for SDS is different
from that for the commercial foamer, with a faster reduction at
short timescales and a smaller reduction at long timescales for
SDS. Therefore, (5) the dynamic surface tension also does not
seem to be a good predictor of the effect of the surfactants in
the setup at low usg.
Effect of Liquid-Flow Rate. In Fig. 12, the effect of the liquid
flow rate on the pressure gradient is illustrated. The behavior
of the two surfactants is quite similar at large gas velocities. At
large usg, the pressure gradient increases with increasing usl. In
the an- nular flow regime in air-water flow, similar to for the
flow with surfactants at high usg, the pressure gradient is
dependent on the liquid flow rate. A larger usl leads to a thicker
liquid film with larger waves, which increases fi, leading to an
increase in the pres- sure gradient. In the churn flow regime,
the air-water flow is irreg- ular regardless of the liquid flow
rate, and the pressure gradient is independent of the liquid flow
rate (Van Nimwegen et al. 2012).
For the flow with surfactants, the average pressure gradient
is strongly dependent on the liquid flow rate even for low usg,
indi- cating that the surfactants shift the transition between
churn and annular flow to lower usg. Because at low usg, the
pressure gradi- ent is independent of usl for air-water flow, but
not for flow with surfactants, the surfactants are more effective
at reducing the pres- sure gradient at low usl. The results for the
commercial foamer also show that the pressure gradient
increases for low usg at usl 40 mm/s, indicating the
surfactants are less able to shift the churn-annular transition at
high¼ usl.
SDS Measurements in Tap Water. Initially, we performed all
measurements with SDS in tap-water solutions. However,
when measuring the same TPC three times with the same
solution, the reproducibility at low usg was poor, as shown in
Fig. 13. The most noteworthy about these results is that the
surfactants become more effective as the surfactant solution
ages. After studying the
495
 1600 1600
usl = 2 mm/s
usl = 2 mm/s
1400 usl = 10 mm/s 1400
usl = 10 mm/s
usl = 40 mm/s
1200 1200 usl = 40 mm/s

1000 1000
dp/dx (Pa/m)

dp/dx (Pa/m)
800 800

600 600

400 400

200 200

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
usg (m/s) usg (m/s)

Fig. 12—The TPCs at different superficial liquid velocities for the commercial foamer at a concentration of 1,000 ppm (left) and for
SDS at a concentration of 590 ppm (right).

SDS solution, it was found that SDS does not dissolve
properly in tap water, because the dodecylsulfate anion
precipitates with cati- ons present in the tap water. Because the
pump increases the tem- perature of the solution when the
setup is in operation, some of the precipitated surfactants
dissolve again, thereby increasing the concentration of
dissolved surfactants. Although, qualitatively, the results are
not much affected by the water chemistry, the SDS
concentration required for a certain pressure-gradient reduction
at low usg is larger when tap water is used than when
demineralized water is used. Furthermore, with demineralized
water, the surfac- tant solutions are better defined. Therefore,
demineralized water is used in all measurements for SDS.
These results indicate that the water chemistry can have a large
effect on the surfactant per- formance. In gas wells, in which
the amount of dissolved salts is much greater than for tap
water, the compatibility of the surfac- tant with the brine
should always be confirmed. When the surfac- tants are
compatible with the water chemistry, the results for the TPC
are qualitatively similar.
Measurement Reproducibility. To evaluate the reproducibility of
the measurements, the TPCs of air-water flow and of the
commercial foamer at a concentration of 500 ppm were measured
five times each (Van Nimwegen et al. 2015a). In Fig. 14, the
standard deviation
of the measurements is indicated by the error bars. The figure
shows that the measurement reproducibility is not affected by the
surfac- tants. Note, however, that the surfactants degrade in time
because of the shear forces in the pump and in the setup, and by
action of bacte- ria. Therefore, each TPC is measured with a fresh
solution.
Flow Visualization. To better understand the behavior of the
pressure gradient of the two surfactants, flow visualization was
performed for air-water flow—for the commercial foamer at a
concentration of 1000 ppm and for SDS at concentrations of
390 and 790 ppm. Snapshots of the visualization are shown in
Fig. 15 for usg 21.5, 16.1, 10.7, and 6.4 m/s. The air/water flow
is rele-¼vant not just as a reference for comparison: Because the
liquid does not foam when introduced into the setup, it is
representative of the flow just after injection, in which the
foam is formed.
In air/water flow at the largest considered superficial gas
ve- locity of 21.5 m/s, approximately the minimum of the
pressure gradient, there is a cocurrent annular flow. The liquid
film moves upward continuously, and ripple waves and a roll
wave are visible in the image. When decreasing the superficial
gas velocity to
16.1 m/s, the liquid film becomes almost stagnant, whereas the
waves on the gas/liquid interface grow. Below 15 m/s, in
which the transition to churn flow occurs, the liquid film
starts to move

1600
1000
Measurement 1 1400
900
Measurement 2
800 Measurement 3 air/water
1200
500 ppm
700
1000
dp/dx (Pa/m)
dp/dx (Pa/m)

600
800
500

400 600

300 400
200
200
100
0
0 6 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 usg (m/s)
usg (m/s)
Fig. 14—Comparison of the reproducibility of TPS measure-
Fig. 13—Three subsequent measurements with the same SDS ments for air/water flow and for flow with 500 ppm of commer-
solution, showing bas reproducibility at low usg. The concen- cial surfactant. The error bars indicate the standard deviation of
tration of SDS is 590 ppm and usl ¼ 2 mm/s. the five performed measurements.

496 April 2016 SPE

Journal
 water
commercial
foamer
1000 ppm
SDS
390 ppm
SDS
790 ppm
usg = 6.4 m/s usg = 10.7 m/s
Fig. 15—Overview of the flow visualization, showing air/water flow without surfactants, with 1,000 ppm of the commercial foamer
added and with 590 and 1,180 ppm SDS added. In all images, usl ¼ 10 mm/s.
downward intermittently. Large flooding waves appear, and
the amount of entrainment increases. Overall, the agitation of
the liq- uid is much more violent.
The results for the commercial foamer show that at
usg ¼
21.5 m/s, with the smallest waves in the air/water flow and
therefore the lowest agitation of the liquid, least foam forms.
The foam moves upward in waves of varying sizes—larger
waves moving upward faster. The foam increases the effective
interfacial roughness somewhat, leading to a small increase in
the pressure gradient. As the gas velocity is lowered and the
agitation of the liquid phase increases, more foam forms until
at 10.7 m/s an almost stagnant foam film is created, which we
call the substrate. Because at this usg the film no longer moves
downward, this means that the foam has lowered the
superficial gas velocity of the transition between annular and
churn flow. Some foam waves move upward superposed on
the substrate. Decreasing the gas-
April 2016 SPE
Journal
usg = 16.1 m/s usg = 21.5 m/s
flow rate further shows that the substrate starts to move
downward and the foam waves move in a more irregular way.
Similar to for the results of the pressure gradient, the
visualiza- tion results for 1,000 ppm of the commercial
foamer and 390 ppm of SDS are very similar. The largest
difference is that at usg 6.4 m/s the flow with 1,000 ppm of
the ¼commercial foamer is already churning, whereas the flow
with an SDS concentration of 390 ppm is still regular. The
pressure gradient for SDS does not increase until usg 4 m/s,
which also indicates≤the flow should still be regular at usg 6.4
m/s.
¼
When the concentration of SDS is increased to 790 ppm,
espe- cially at the two largest gas-flow rates in the figure, the
amount of foam increases. This larger amount of foam can lead
to a larger interfacial roughness, which leads to a larger fi and a
larger pres- sure gradient. At lower gas velocities (usg 10.7 and
6.4 m/s), the results are more similar ¼ to the lower
concentration, although the
497
 SDS 390 ppm
usg = 2.1 m/s usg = 4.3 m/s
Fig. 16—Comparison of the flow visualization at two different SDS concentrations and at low gas-flow rates. Again, usl ¼ 10 mm/s.
foam appears more dense, probably because the foam film is
thicker, and the bubble size appears to be somewhat smaller.
To investigate the transition to more-irregular flow for SDS,
snapshots of the flow at superficial gas velocities below 6.4
m/s are shown in Fig. 16. At the lowest concentration shown in
the figure, the morphology of the foam film does become
irregular at usg 4.3 m/s and usg 2.1 m/s. The foam at the wall
¼ to move downward
starts ¼ faster between subsequent waves,
and the upward-moving waves become larger and more
irregular, causing the increase of the pressure oscillations. At a
surfactant concentra- tion of 790 ppm, only at usg 2.1 m/s
some of the foam film starts to move downward. The foam
film becomes thicker, block-¼ing more light, and the upward
moving waves can only be seen as vague shadows. The rigidity
of the foam film indicates a high foam viscosity, which also
indicates a low liquid content (Weaire and Hutzler 1999); the
density of the liquid is decreased more here than in other
experiments, which, from Turner’s criterion, also leads to the
largest decrease in the gas-flow rate of the onset of liquid
loading.
For the highest SDS concentration of 790 ppm, the
pressure
gradient at a superficial gas velocity of 1.1 m/s was very low.
To investigate the corresponding flow morphology, flow
visualization was performed at usg 1.1 m/s. It shows that the
low pressure gradient¼is caused by a flow-pattern transition to
slug flow. This means that the churn-flow pattern did not occur
at all at this large concentration. We verified that such a
transition also occurs for the commercial foamer. An example
of slug flow is presented in Fig. 17. The first image shows the
flow between slugs—a film of foam that is slowly moving
downward along the wall. Compared with larger gas-flow
rates, the bubble size has increased some- what, and the layer
of foam is less thick. It moves downward very regularly, with
the foam moving equally fast along the entire pipe
Fig. 17—Illustration of a slug moving upward in the flow with the commercial foamer at a concentration of 3,000 ppm. usg ¼ 1.1 m/s
and usl ¼ 10 mm/s.
498
SDS 790 ppm
usg = 2.1 m/s usg = 4.3 m/s
circumference. No waves or other features are visible on the
foam film. The second and third images show the front of the
slug mov- ing upward. In the fourth image, the slug occupies
the entire field of view, and the last image shows the back of
the ¼slug. The slug flow also explains the large pressure
fluctuations found at usg 1.1 m/s for an SDS concentration
of 790 ppm. When there is a slug in between the pressure
sensors, the pressure gradient is much larger than when there is
no slug. Slug flow, though less regular, also occurs for the
lower surfactant concentrations. This is the reason for the
decrease in the average
¼ pressure gradient
¼ when going from usg
2.1 m/s to usg 1.1 m/s observed for all surfactant
concentrations.
Future Work
The conditions in our laboratory setup are very different from
those in actual wells: The diameter of the tubing, the pressure,
the temperature, and the gas and liquid composition are
different in actual wells. Despite these differences, we think
that the results shown in this work are qualitatively similar to
those obtained in an actual gas well. These different
conditions, however, will have an effect on the quantitative
properties of the flow in the tubing; for instance, a larger
pressure leads to a larger density of the gas, which means that
at the same gas velocity, the gas exerts more force on the
liquid. The minimum of the tubing-performance curve would
therefore move to lower superficial gas velocities as the
pressure increases. With respect to the tubing size, we already
have extended our current work by performing experiments in
pipes of different diameters. From these latter experimental
results, we hope to make a mechanistic model of the flow,
taking into account the scaling of the diameter. We will also
try to find proper scaling relations for the pressure and the
temperature that can be implemented in the model.
April 2016 SPE
Journal
 A complication of modeling the flow with surfactants com-
pared with flow without surfactants is that it is unknown how
much foam is formed from the liquid (i.e., what the
foamability of the liquid is). As shown in the Results section,
none of the properties of the surfactant solution that we have
measured so far can predict the effect of the surfactant solution
(i.e., the foamabil- ity) in the setup. Furthermore, it is known
that the components of the brine can have a significant effect
on the critical micelle con- centration and on the solubility of
the surfactant (Corrin and Har- kins 1947; Zhou and Hao
2011), which would, in turn, have an effect on the foamability.
Furthermore, the hydrocarbons present in the liquid can have a
large effect on the foamability (Willis et al. 2008), and the
foamability is affected by the temperature and pressure. To
model the flow, an appropriate experiment to evaluate this
foamability should be designed. In the gas industry, already
small-scale experiments are used to evaluate the foam- ability,
in which actual field fluids are used (Yang et al. 2007).
In our future work, we hope to develop a small-scale
foamabil- ity test that can predict the amount of foam formed
in our setup for the aqueous solutions that we use. The results
of the foamabil- ity test will then be used as an input to our
mechanistic model. When applying this model for actual wells,
the small-scale setup should be used at the actual field
conditions to find the proper input parameters to the flow
model.
Conclusion
From field experience in gas production, it is known that
surfac- tants can prevent liquid loading in gas wells. To gain
understand- ing of how these surfactants affect the flow in the
production tubing, laboratory experiments with air/water flow
at atmospheric pressure and at room temperature were
performed. In earlier work, the influence of a commercial
foamer on this flow was investigated. In the current paper,
additional experiments were performed with a second
surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), to investigate the
importance of the surfactant selection.
For both surfactants, the hydrodynamics of the flow lead to
the formation of foam, which results in an increase of the
volume and the viscosity of the liquid phase and a decrease in
the density of the liquid phase. At large gas-flow rates, the
increased volume leads to foam waves that increase the
interfacial friction factor, causing an increase of the pressure
gradient. At low gas-flow rates, the lower density of the foam
allows it to be carried upward more easily by the air, which
leads to a more regular flow, shifts the transition between
annular and churn flow to lower superficial gas velocities, and
results in a significantly smaller hydrostatic pressure gradient.
The minimum in the pressure gradient, in which the two effects
outlined previously are balanced, moves to lower gas flow
rates as the surfactant concentration is increased. At moderate
concentrations (1,000 ppm for the commercial foamer and 390
ppm for SDS), the minimum becomes a plateau, in which the
pressure gradient is constant for a range of gas velocities.
Quantitatively, results for the two surfactants are similar,
although the optimum surfactant concentration for reducing the
pressure gradient at a certain usg is not the same for the two
sur- factants. Furthermore, the critical micelle concentration
(CMC), the equilibrium surface tension, the dynamic surface
tension, and the surface elasticity do not seem to be good
predictors of the dose rate required to decrease the pressure
gradient. The results for SDS and the commercial surfactant
can be similar, while each of these properties of the surfactant
solutions is different. For instance, for SDS, more foam is
formed at a quarter of the CMC, than for the commercial
foamer at twice the CMC. Also, although the equilibrium
surface tension is lower for the commercial foamer than for
SDS in every case, more foam is formed in the SDS
experiments.
Measurements of SDS at a concentration of 890 ppm and
for the commercial surfactant at a concentration of 3,000 ppm
show a slug flow at a superficial gas velocity of approximately
1 m/s. In this slug flow regime, the average pressure gradient
has a mini- mum; it is even lower than the lowest pressure
gradient measured for air/water flow. The slug flow shows a
very regular foam film
April 2016 SPE
Journal
at the wall, and slugs are gently moving upward. Further
research into this flow pattern should be performed to
determine at which gas- and liquid-flow rates it will occur.
These results give more insight into the prevention of liquid
loading in gas wells by surfactants and also give initial insight
into the differences in the flow that are caused by choosing a
dif- ferent surfactant. These results can be used as a foundation
for a future mechanistic model of gas/liquid/foam flow.
Nomenclature
A ¼ interfacial area in dilational-rheology measurements, m2
Aa ¼ amplitude of the interfacial-area oscillation in
dilational- rheology measurements, m2
A0 ¼ average interfacial-area oscillation in dilational-
rheology measurements, m2
CD ¼ drag coefficient, -
d ¼ droplet diameter, m
E ¼ surface-dilational modulus, mN/m
fi ¼ interfacial-friction coefficient, -
3
Fi ¼ gas/liquid interfacial force per unit volume, N/m
Fl ¼ force exerted by the wall on the liquid per unit volume,
N/m3
g ¼ gravitational acceleration, m/s2
p ¼ pressure, Pa
uc ¼ critical gas velocity, determined by the Turner
criterion, m/s
ug ¼ velocity of the gas, m/s
ui ¼ velocity of the interface, m/s
ump ¼ superficial gas velocity corresponding to the minimum
in dp/dx in air/water flow, m/s
usg ¼ superficial gas velocity, m/s
usl ¼ superficial liquid velocity,
m/s ¼We Weber
number, -
x ¼ axial coordinate, m
ag ¼ gas holdup, m3/m3
al ¼ liquid holdup, m3/m3
c ¼ surface tension, mN/m
ca ¼ amplitude of the surface-tension oscillation in
dilational- rheology measurements
qg ¼ gas density, kg/m3
ql ¼ liquid density, kg/m3
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Grace Curtis-Holsgrove at the
Shell Technology Centre in Amsterdam for the measurements
of the equilibrium surface tension of SDS, and of the dynamic
surface tension (DST) of both the commercial foamer and
SDS. We would like to thank Durgesh Kawale for performing
the surface-elasticity measurements for SDS. Furthermore, we
would like to thank Johan Sjöblum, professor from the
Ugelstadt laboratory at the Nor- wegian University of Science
and Technology, for allowing us to perform surface-elasticity
measurements in his laboratory. We gratefully acknowledge
Sébastien Simon for his help in running the surface-elasticity
measurements. The project is funded by NAM, a Dutch
subsidiary of Shell and ExxonMobil. The authors would like to
thank Gert de Vries, Kees Veeken, Ewout Biezen, and Ruud
Trompert from NAM for the valuable discussions.
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Andreas T. van Nimwegen is a post-doctoral-degree
researcher at Delft University of Technology. He just completed
his PhD degree research at the same university on the effect
of surfactants on gas/liquid pipe flows.
Lu´ıs M. Portela is assistant professor at Delft University of Tech-
nology. He teaches courses on fluid mechanics, transport phe-
nomena, and multiphase flow. Portela’s main research
interests are in fluid mechanics and, in particular, multiphase
flow. He holds a PhD degree in mechanical engineering from
Stanford University.
Rudolphus A. W. M. Henkes is Team Lead Multiphase Flow and
the Principal Technical Expert Fluid Flow for Shell Projects and
Technology. He is also Professor Multiphase Flow at Delft Uni-
versity of Technology. Henkes holds a PhD degree from that
university in fluid flow and heat transfer. He has more than 25
years of experience in fluid flow and more than 15 years of ex-
perience in oil and gas production. Henkes was involved in
the multiphase flow design of many of Shell’s major projects.
Over the years, he has published journal papers on heat trans-
fer (particularly, natural convection), boundary layers, and
multiphase flow.
April 2016 SPE
Journal