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Updated: Apr 13, 2026

Enhanced Oil Recovery using a Combination of Biosurfactants
Published on: June 3, 2022
The Rebirth of Waste Cooking Oil to Novel Bio-based Surfactants
Qi-Qi Zhang1, Bang-Xin Cai1, Wen-Jie Xu1
1State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering and Institute of Applied Chemistry, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, P.R. China.
Abstract:
Waste cooking oil (WCO) is a kind of non-edible oil with enormous quantities and its unreasonable dispose may generate negative impact on human life and environment. However, WCO is certainly a renewable feedstock of bio-based materials. To get the rebirth of WCO, we have established a facile and high-yield method to convert WCO to bio-based zwitterionic surfactants with excellent surface and interfacial properties. The interfacial tension between crude oil and water could reach ultra-low value as 0.0016 mN m(-1) at a low dosage as 0.100 g L(-1) of this bio-based surfactant without the aid of extra alkali, which shows a strong interfacial activity and the great potential application in many industrial fields, in particular, the application in enhanced oil recovery in oilfields in place of petroleum-based surfactants.
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