Feasibility study of new natural leaf-derived surfactants on the IFT in an oil–aqueous system: experimental investigation

Abstract

Surfactant flooding is an Enhanced Oil Recovery technique used for decreasing oil trapping in pore spaces by reducing the interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water. In this study, three types of plants based on natural cationic surfactants, named Olive, Spistan and Prosopis, are introduced and the application of these natural surfactants in reducing the interfacial tension of water–oil system is investigated. For this purpose, three natural-based surfactants were extracted from the leaves of the trees of addressed plants and then the interfacial tension values between oil and natural surfactant solution were measured using the pendant drop method. The results demonstrated that Olive extract was able to lower the IFT between kerosene and distilled water from 36.5 to 14 mN/m, while Spistan and Prosopis extract could reduce the IFT from 36.5 to 20.15 mN/m and 36.5 to 15.11 mN/m, respectively. According to these results in addition to the low price of generating natural surfactants, the feasibility of using these kinds of surfactants in future oil recovery processes is of major concern.