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Book Reviews Foams: Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry. Edited by Laurier L. Schramm (Petroleum Research Institute). American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1994. 555 pp. ISBN 0-8412-2719-5. $109.95. The state of the literature in 1987 presented the chemical researcher working on petroleum-production and oil-field problems with a bit of a paradox: Despite the huge R&D effort on enhanced oil recovery (EOR) from shortly after the Arab oil embargo of 1973 until 1981, and despite the passage of six years for the assimilation and organization of this research, few books on these subjects had appeared since the volume Improved Oil Recovery by Surfactant and Polymer Flooding1 10 years before. Petroleum supplies 99% of America’s transportation energy. But, seemingly, the surfactant and surface chemistry of petroleum production was “too chemical” for the petroleum literature and “too applied” for the chemical literature. However, starting in 1988 with the book Surfactant-Based Mobility Control: Progress in Miscible-Flood Enhanced Oil Recovery2 followed in 1989 by Oil-Field Chemistry,3 the American Chemical Society has published several books that do much to fill this vacuum. The latest volumes in this unofficial series include a pair of books edited by L. L. Schramm: Emulsions: Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry4 (published in 1992) and Foams: Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry (Advances in Chemistry Series No. 242; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1994). Foams begins with an introductory chapter coauthored by the editor, followed by 11 other chapters divided among sections titled “Foam Fundamentals”, (the rather awkwardly phrased) “Enhancing Oil Recovery From Porous Media Testing Foams”, “Near-Well and Oilwell Applications of Foam”, and “Foams in Surface Facilities”. The book concludes with a glossary on foam and emulsion terminology and author, affiliation, and subject indexes. The chapters on foams in CO2 enhanced oil recovery, by Heller, and on foam stability, by Wasan, Nikolov, and coauthors, give these researchers a chance to update their 1988 chapters2 on these subjects. The former chapter only briefly mentions the important East Vacuum Grayburg San Andres Unit field test, to which its author contributed so much. Foam stability in the presence of crude oil also is addressed in an excellent chapter by Schramm. A much different chapter introduces various combinations of process equipment and agents used for refinery antifoaming and defoaming. The
0887-0624/96/2510-0266$12.00/0
developments of carbon dioxide foams, steam foams, and gasblocking foams have occurred with many cross-fertilizations; like CO2 foams, each of the latter two applications is addressed by an individual chapter. The major problem of surfactant adsorption on reservoir minerals in foam applications is addressed in an important chapter by Mannhardt and Novosad. A solid introduction to foams for well stimulation includes sections on N2 foams, CO2 foams, and foamed acid fluids, as well as design and implementation considerations. Other chapters discuss foams in heavy-oil production, and bituminous froths in the hot-water flotation process (to which Alberta and the Petroleum Recovery Institute have made major contributions). The chapters on surfactant adsorption (149 references), mechanisms of foam stability (104 references), and foam transport in porous media (100 references) provide the most extensive citations of their respective literatures. The two shortest reference lists include only 10 and 13 references, respectively. The “typical” chapter includes 64 references, including a few citations of papers published in 1991. (The chapters were submitted in 1992 and accepted for publication in 1993.) In summary, Foams: Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry provides a reasonably comprehensive coverage of its title material and many well-written chapters, making it an important and welcome addition to the short list of books on surfactants and surface chemistry in petroleum production. References 1. Shah, D. O., Schechter, R. S., Eds. Improved Oil Recovery by Surfactant and Polymer Flooding; Academic Press: New York, 1977. 2. Smith, D. H., Ed. Surfactant-Based Mobility Control: Progress in Miscible-Flood Enhanced Oil Recovery; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1988. 3. Borchardt, J. K., Yen, T. F., Eds. Oil-Field Chemistry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1989. 4. Schramm, L. L., Ed. Emulsions: Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1992. Duane H. Smith, Technical Solutions, Route 12, Box 199, Morgantown, WV 26505 EF950077M
© 1996 American Chemical Society
