Determination of Polymer Content in Polymer Oily Sludge Sea Oil-field by Elemental Analysis and FT-IR Spectrometry

Polymer flooding is considered as an important method in the high-efficient development of crude oil production in offshore oilfield. Along with the increase of the liquid produced by the polymer flooding, many problems need to be solved such as the blockage in the process and the negative effects on the operation of the equipment for the treament of liquid produced. After the separation of polymer, crude oil and soil from the polymer-containing sludge, combined methods such as elemental analysis, infrared spectrometry, gas chromatography, X-ray diffraction method and visible-infrared spectrophotometry were firstly applied in the analysis of different sludge samples. The result of the composition measurement showed that the oil contents were in the range of 22.9% to 42.12%, the moisture contents 38.34% to 62.3%, solid contents 14.8% to 19.54%, in which the polymer contents were from 3.37% to 7.42%, and the inorganic mineral contents were from 1.30% to 3.74%. The GC analysis indicated that the oil separated from the polymer-containing sludge and the standard crude oil in SZ36-1 Oilfield were consistent, both oils had the same composition with high recycling value. From the elemental analysis, the properties of injected polymer had not changed. The analysis results have a significant effect on the study of crude oil and polymer recycle in the polymer-containing sludge and the separation technology of sludge.