Soap And The Bakken -- October 27, 2021

This was posted in The Williston Herald while I was traveling; noted by a reader. 

This story also reported by AP.

A pilot project in North Dakota is testing whether sending a substance with the consistency of maple syrup down oil wells will help increase production.

The process involves combining so-called biosurfactant with water and pumping the mixture into wells where it will reach cracks in the rock formed when the oil is extracted by fracking. The goal is to reduce the attraction between rock and oil in order to recover more crude.

If successful it could also benefit North Dakota farmers because materials such as canola oil and sugar beets facilitate the fermentation process necessary to create the biosurfactant.

It's interesting the writer focused on the "consistency" of the product. I'm not sure that helps me understand "biosurfactant."

For me, "surfactant" = soap.

From wiki:

Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension (or interfacial tension) between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or between a liquid and a solid. 

Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents, or dispersants. The word "surfactant" is a blend of surface-active agent, coined c.  1950.

In neonatal ICUs, surfactant became a game changer, back in the 1970s, I suppose, for treating infants born prematurely. Humans produce a natural surfactant which allows the microscopic air sacs (alveoli) to expand -- think of the difficulty of blowing up a previously inflated balloon that has become damp; almost impossible to re-inflate. Surfactant (soap) helps re-inflate the collapsed rubber balloon. But for humans, that natural surfactant is not produced in large volumes in babies born before thirty-four gestation, or thereabouts.

Full term infants are estimated to have an alveolar storage pool of approximately 100 mg/kg of surfactant, while preterm infants have an estimated 4–5 mg/kg at birth. Wiki. 

When I began training, pediatrician / neonatologists would administer artificial surfactant to pre-term infants after the infants had been moved from the delivery room to the neonatal ICU (NICU). Now, obstetricians administer that surfactant to the premie in the delivery room often simultaneous with the neonate's first breath. Made all the difference in the world. Quite remarkable. 

Back to the Bakken. The companies involved:

• Locus Bio-Energy Solutions, based in Woodlands, TX; and,
• Creedence Energy services, based in Minot, ND

Of note:

The companies believe that the small size of the biosurfactant is the reason this product works so well. While DNA is 2.3 nanometers thick, the Creedence-Bio Locus surfactant is smaller still, at 1.2 nanometers.

More at the link.