Description

Microbial flooding has the potential of becoming a standard enhanced oil recovery method; due to their environmentally friendly aspect, microbes could eventually replace synthetic surfactants. The Microb-flood is specifically designed for the study of microbial EOR processes in which microbial bio-surfactants are injected into the reservoir. These have the property of reducing the surface tension on the reservoir rock and the interfacial tension between the injected aqueous phase and the reservoir hydrocarbons. The Microb-flood system is ideally suited for the evaluation of various mixtures at reservoir conditions including bio-surfactants, co-surfactants and polymers. Change in permeability, optimal microbial concentration, displacement efficiency and incremental oil recovery are some of the key parameters which can be deduced from these studies.