Even in times of renewable energy revolution fossil fuels will play a major role in energy supply, transportation, and chemical industry. Therefore, increasing demand for crude oil will still have to be met in the next decades by developing new oil re-serves. To cope with this challenge, companies and researchers are constantly seeking for new methods to increase the recovery factor of oil fields. For that reason, many enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods have been developed and applied in the field. EOR methods alter the physico-chemical conditions inside the reservoir. One possibility to achieve this is to inject an aqueous solution containing special chemicals into the oil-bearing zone. Polymers, for example, increase the viscosity of the injected water and hence improve the displacement of the oil to the production well. The injection of surfactant solutions results in reduced capillary forces, which retain the oil in the pores of the reservoir. Some surfactants form viscoelastic solutions under certain conditions. The possibil-ity to apply those solutions for enhanced oil recovery has been investigated by some authors in the last years in low salinity brines. Reservoir brines, however, often contain high salt concentrations, which have detrimental effects on the properties of many chemical solutions applied for EOR operations. The Triphenoxymethane derivatives, which were the subject of study in this thesis, form viscoelastic solutions even in highly saline brines. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the efficiency and the mode-of-action of this new class of chemical EOR molecules with respect to oil mobilization in porous media.

Even in times of renewable energy revolution fossil fuels will play a major role in energy supply, transportation, and chemical industry. Therefore, increasing demand for crude oil will still have to be met in the next decades by developing new oil re-serves. To cope with this challenge, companies and researchers are constantly seeking for new methods to increase the recovery factor of oil fields. For that reason, many enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods have been developed and applied in the field. EOR methods alter the physico-chemical conditions inside the reservoir. One possibility to achieve this is to inject an aqueous solution containing special chemicals into the oil-bearing zone. Polymers, for example, increase the viscosity of the injected water and hence improve the displacement of the oil to the production well. The injection of surfactant solutions results in reduced capillary forces, which retain the oil in the pores of the reservoir. Some surfactants form viscoelastic solutions under certain conditions. The possibil-ity to apply those solutions for enhanced oil recovery has been investigated by some authors in the last years in low salinity brines. Reservoir brines, however, often contain high salt concentrations, which have detrimental effects on the properties of many chemical solutions applied for EOR operations. The Triphenoxymethane derivatives, which were the subject of study in this thesis, form viscoelastic solutions even in highly saline brines. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the efficiency and the mode-of-action of this new class of chemical EOR molecules with respect to oil mobilization in porous media.