Experimental Investigations on Enzyme Foam Stability

Authors: Udoh T, Bassey GO

DOI Info: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6726422

ABSTRACT

Foams are produced and stabilized in the presence of surface-active compounds such as surfactants and enzymes. The unavailability of significant research on enzyme foam generation and stability in industrial processes motivated this study whose objective is to investigate the potential of an enzyme to generate and stabilise foam under different conditions of temperature, salinity, pH and enzyme concentration. The residual foam height ratio (R5) method was used to analyse the foam stability under these conditions. The result of the study showed that the enzyme used in this study has the capacity to generate and stabilise foam, but the condition under which the foam is generated however influences its stability. Also, the foam stability depends on enzyme concentration, and it increases with increase in enzyme concentration. Increase in temperature however had an inverse effect on foam stability as it reduced its stability. Furthermore, a decrease in foam stability was observed with increase in brine salinity at all temperatures and enzyme concentrations. Finally, at high enzyme concentrations, increase in the pH of the solutions resulted in the production of very stable foams with R5 values greater than 70% for all temperatures investigated but at low enzyme concentration, the neutral solution (pH of 7) favoured the foam stability. This study presents the novel insight on enzymatic foam stability in salinity and temperature relevant to hydrocarbon reservoir.

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