An Overview of Natural Surfactant Application for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Abstract

Surfactant flooding is an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method that recovers residual and capillary trapped oil by improving pore scale displacement efficiency. Due to toxicity and high cost of conventional surfactant, recent trend involves the use of natural surfactant for EOR. Natural surfactants are benign and biodegradable as they are derived from plant leaves and oil extracts. Herein, a synopsis of recent trend in the incorporation of newly devised natural surfactant for EOR was reviewed. Experimental results show that the surfactants exhibited sterling properties desired for EOR such as lower adsorption, interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, stable emulsion , and wettability alteration of sandstone and carbonate rocks. Overall, natural surfactants are suitable replacement for conventional surfactant. Nonetheless, an accurate modeling and pilot scale studies of natural surfactants remain obscure in literature.