Surfactants can be used to alter wettability of reservoir rock, increasing spontaneous imbibition and thus improving oil yields. Commercial synthetic surfactants are often prohibitively expensive and so a crude preparation of the anionic biosurfactant, surfactin, from Bacillus subtilis grown on high-starch industrial and agricultural effluents has been proposed as an economical alternative. To assess the effectiveness of the surfactin, it is compared to commercially available surfactants. In selecting a suitable benchmark surfactant, two metrics are examined: the ability of the surfactants to alter wettability at low concentrations, and the degree to which they are absorbed onto reservoir matrix. We review the literature to survey the adsorption models that have been developed to describe surfactant adsorption in porous media. These models are evaluated using the experimental data from this study. Crushed carbonate rock samples are cleaned and aged in crude oil. The wettability change mediated by dilute solutions of commercial anionic surfactants and surfactin is assessed using a two-phase separation; and surfactant loss due to retention and adsorption the rock is determined.
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