Gemini Surfactant with Unsaturated Long Tails for Viscoelastic Surfactant (VES) Fracturing Fluid Used in Tight Reservoirs

[Image: see text] The high dosage of surfactant terribly restrains the extensive application of viscoelastic surfactant (VES) fracturing fluid. In this study, a novel gemini surfactant (GLO) with long hydrophobic tails and double bonds was prepared and a VES fracturing fluid with a low concentration of GLO was developed. Because of the long tails bending near the double bonds, there is a significant improvement of the surfactant aggregate architecture, which realized the favorable viscosity of the VES fluid at a more economical concentration than the conventional VES fracturing fluids. Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry ((1)H NMR, (13)C NMR), and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) were employed to study the formation of the product and the structure of GLO. The designed GLO was produced according to the results of the structure characterizations. The formula of the VES fracturing fluid was optimized to be 2.0 wt % GLO + 0.4 wt % sodium salicylate (NaSal) + 1.0 wt % KCl based on the measurements of the viscosity. The viscosity of the VES fluid decreased from 405.5 to 98.7 mPa·s as the temperature increased from 18 to 80 °C and reached equilibrium at about 70.2 mPa·s. The VES fluid showed a typical elastic pseudoplastic fluid with a yield stress of 0.5 Pa in the rheological tests. It realized a proppant setting velocity as low as 0.08 g/min in the dynamic proppant transport test carried by GLO-based VES fracturing fluid. Compared to the formation water, the filtrate of the VES fracturing fluid decreased the water contact angle (CA) from 56.2 to 45.4° and decreased the water/oil interfacial tension (IFT) from 19.5 to 1.6 mN/m. Finally, the VES fracturing fluid induced a low permeability loss rate of 10.4% and a low conductivity loss rate of 5.4% for the oil phase in the experiments of formation damage evaluation.