Lipopeptide biosurfactants for enhanced oil recovery: characterization and efficiency
Abstract
Background. Oil remains a critical resource in the global energy sector, accounting for approximately 30% of worldwide energy consumption. However, conventional primary and secondary recovery methods extract only 20-40% of oil reserves, which stimulates the development of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques. Among them, biological (microbial) EOR methods (MEOR), based on the application of biosurfactants synthesized by microorganisms as "green" analogs of synthetic surfactants, show high potential for mature fields with high residual oil content.
Purpose. To evaluate the effectiveness of biosurfactants produced by Bacillus sp. 2a and Peribacillus sp. 2b strains for enhancing production of hard-to-recover oil reserves.
Materials and methods. The study was conducted under laboratory conditions. Lipopeptide biosurfactants extracted from cultures of Bacillus sp. 2a and Peribacillus sp. 2b strains were used. The lipopeptide nature of these biosurfactants was confirmed by infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Surface activity was evaluated by measuring surface tension using the Du Noüy ring method. The efficiency for MEOR was determined in model experiments on oil displacement from sand-packed columns using crude oil from the Romashkino field.
Results. IR spectroscopy confirmed the lipopeptide composition of the biosurfactants. The biosurfactant from the Bacillus sp. 2a strain reduced the surface tension to 29.6 - mN m-1 (peak activity at 24–48 hours), providing an additional oil recovery factor of 31.2% in a model experiment. For the Peribacillus sp. 2b strain, the minimum surface tension was 52.8 mN m-1 (achieved by 48 hours), with an increase in oil recovery of 23.2%. The efficiency of additional oil recovery provided by the biosurfactant from the Bacillus sp. 2a strain is comparable to the results obtained with a synthetic surfactant (31.2% and 29.3%, respectively).
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