A Synergy between Controlled Salinity Brine and Biosurfactant Flooding for Improved Oil Recovery: An Experimental Investigation Based on Zeta Potential and Interfacial Tension Measurements

Figure 1

Crude oil-brine IFT as a function of the ionic strength. The symbols correspond to the three brines tested in this work: CSB (ionic strength 0.083 M); SW (ionic strength 0.75 M); FMB (ionic strength 3 M). The black line and triangles correspond to IFT measurements without any biosurfactant; the red line and symbols are the results of IFT measured in the system with 1 wt.% of greenzyme; the blue line shows the results obtained with 1 wt.% of rhamnolipid. The error bars in these experiments are based on the instrument accuracy and repeatability and do not exceed the size of the symbols in the figure.