Production and Application of Biosurfactant Produced by Bacillus licheniformis Ali5 in Enhanced Oil Recovery and Motor Oil Removal from Contaminated Sand

Abstract

The present study describes the production of biosurfactant from isolate B. licheniformis Ali5. Seven different, previously-reported minimal media were screened for biosurfactant production, and two selected media were further optimized for carbon source. Further, various fermentation conditions such as (pH 2–12, temperature 20–50 °C, agitation speed 100–300 rpm, NaCl (0–30 g·L−1) were investigated. The partially purified biosurfactant was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectroscopy (MALDI-TOF MS) and found a lipopeptide mixture, similar to lichenysin-A. Biosurfactant reduced surface tension from 72.0 to 26.21 ± 0.3 and interfacial tension by 0.26 ± 0.1 mN·m−1 respectively, biosurfactant yield under optimized conditions was 1 g·L−1, with critical micelle concentration (CMC) of 21 mg·L−1 with high emulsification activity of (E24) 66.4 ± 1.4% against crude oil. Biosurfactant was found to be stable over extreme conditions. It also altered the wettability of hydrophobic surface by changing the contact angle from 49.76° to 16.97°. Biosurfactant efficiently removed (70-79%) motor oil from sand, with an efficiency of more than 2 fold as compared without biosurfactant (36–38%). It gave 32% additional oil recovery over residual oil saturation upon application to a sand-packed column. These results are indicative of potential application of biosurfactant in wettability alteration and ex-situ microbial enhanced oil recovery.

Biosurfactant production by Trichoderma sp. MK116452 and its possible application in oil recovery

“…There are several reports highlighting the success of ex situ biosurfactant-mediated MEOR at the laboratory scale, which highlights the ease of application and high success rate (Qazi et al 2013;Kanna 2017;Ashish and Debnath (Das) 2018;Santos et al 2018;Ali et al 2019;Astuti et al 2019;Câmara et al 2019;de Araujo et al 2019;Ghazala et al 2019;Maia et al 2019). Biosurfactants can recover around 10-85% of oil from sand pack columns or core floods.…”

“…However, the use of chemicals can be expensive and harmful to the environment. Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) has gained attention because of its environmentally friendly nature, applicability, and cost effectiveness (Ali et al 2019).…”

Biosurfactant production by Trichoderma sp. MK116452 and its possible application in oil recovery

“…There were numerous articles emphasizing the achievement of ex situ biosurfactant-mediated MEOR at the laboratory scale, which highlights the comfort of application and huge success rate (Qazi et al 2013;Kanna 2017;Ashish and Debnath (Das) 2018;Santos et al 2018;Ali et al 2019;Astuti et al 2019;Câmara et al 2019;de Araujo et al 2019;Ghazala et al 2019;Maia et al 2019).…”

“…However, chemicals can be expensive and harmful to environment. Other alternative such as microbial enhanced oil recovery has obtained attention because of its environmentally friendly nature, applicability, and cost effectiveness (Ali et al 2019).…”

Novel Bioformulations Developed from Pseudomonas putida BSP9 and Its Biosurfactant for Growth Promotion of Brassica juncea (L.)

“…For identification of the functional groups in the purified biosurfactant, FTIR analysis was done using a Bruker Avance 600 instrument. For this, 1 mg of freeze dried biosurfactant was mixed with 100 mg of KBr and a thin translucent pellet was placed to record the IR in the range 400 cm −1 and 4000 cm −1 [ 90 ].…”