Developing the New Surfactant for Remediation of Crude Oil

Crude Oil is the major input cost for refiners; however, crude oil's low water solubility places it in a class of contaminants referred to as non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs). Crude oil is particularly difficult to recover from saturated porous media, and is often found at residual saturations that act as a long-term ground water contamination source. The pump-and-treat method is one of the most widely used remedial approaches. Then, most experts already knew that low aqueous solubility results in low recovery rate. However, the use of surfactants to increase the apparent aqueous solubility of crude oil was tested for potential use as an enhancement of conventional pump-and-treat. That would increase crude oil recovery rate, reducing the pore volumes and clean-up time. In this paper, blended surfactants, electrolyte, co-solvent and polymer