Synergistic Effect of Biosurfactant and Nanoparticle Mixture on Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

Recently, nanoparticles have become an attractive agent for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Because much of the work on nanoparticles for enhanced oil recovery is still at the laboratory stage and to gain a better understanding of this technique, it is essential to study the effect of nanoparticles on EOR. In addition, the world is now more environmentally aware, presenting the opportunity to use biosurfactants for EOR. In this paper, the synergistic effect of biosurfactant and nanoparticles on the removal of oil in a glass micromodel was evaluated. In this study, an aqueous solution of emulsan biosurfactant with addition of SiO 2 nanoparticles was used as a nanofluid. The emulsan biosurfactant was produced by Acinetobacter calcoaceticus PTCC1318. The production of emulsan was confirmed by FTIR and 1 H NMR analysis. According to our results, the use of the mixture of biosurfactant and nanoparticle (nanofluid) permitted a 90% reduction of interfacial tension in comparison with biosurfactant solution alone. Micromodel oil displacement experiments with kerosene showed around 10 and 20% recovery of residual oil after water flooding when the emulsan and nanofluid were injected, respectively. These results are useful in extending the application of nanostructures in ex situ microbial enhanced oil recovery.

Untitled

“…Products of microbial transformation can be enhanced in their activities through nanotechnology. For instance, the dispersion of oil in water and leaching of crude oil from soil matrix by microbial surfactants can be enhanced by surfactant-nanometal hybrid [64], which may lead to the development of novel nano-based biosurfactant for enhanced oil recovery, especially from marginal fields. Nanoparticles have also shown to enhance microbial transformation of xenobiotics [65] to control pollution.…”

Experimental Investigations on Behaviour of Rhamnolipid Biosurfactant as a Green Stabilizer for the Biological Synthesis of Gold Nanoparticles

“…Biosurfactants are used in several industries including agrochemicals, fertilizers, foods, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and many others due to their unique functional properties such as low toxicity. They can be used as emulsifiers, wetting agents, spreading agents, functional food ingredients and detergents [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The surface tension reducing ability of biosurfactants made them to play an important role in these industries.…”

Synergy between Sugar‐Based Anionic‐Nonionic Surfactants and Ag‐TiO2 Nanohybrids for Enhanced Oil Recovery

“…Pei and Zhang () showed that the synergy between NP and surfactants can stabilize an O/W emulsion. Amani () showed that the presence of the NP in the interfacial layers could change the rheological properties and reduce surface tension and IFT. Therefore, the solvents based on the NP‐surfactant suspensions can provide a high displacement efficiency.…”