Halloysite nanotubes as delivery mechanism for feather protein-based multi-surfactant systems in crude oil dispersion application.

Chicken feather protein (CFP), and lecithin (L), Tween 80 (T), and DOSS (D) surfactant systems were loaded onto halloysite nanotubes (HNTs), a natural clay aluminosilicate product to form particulate dispersants at different surfactant concentrations and characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscopy coupled with EDS. For 24 wt% surfactants concentrations loaded HNTs; 100 wt%CFP-HNTs, 60 wt%CFP- 40 wt%L-HNTs, 20 wt%CFP- 80 wt%T-HNTs, 50 wt%CFP- 25 wt%T-25 wt%L-HNTs and 25 wt %CFP- 25 wt%T-50 wt%D-HNTs showed good interfacial tension lowering abilities by recording 6.39, 2.82, 2.43, 1.68, and 1.55 mN/m at 60s respectively. The CFP-based surfactant-HNTs dispersants formed very stable o/w emulsions against droplet coalescence and showed an increase in interfacial viscosity which contributed to the stability of their respective o/w emulsions. In this study, the US EPA's baffled flask test was deployed to probe the prospects of the CFP-based surfactants-HNTs dispersants in crude oil dispersion at different surfactant concentrations. 100 wt%CFP-HNTs, 60 wt %CFP- 40 wt %L-HNTs, 20 wt %CFP- 80 wt %T-HNTs, 50 wt %CFP- 25 wt%T-25 wt%L-HNTs and 25 wt%CFP- 25 wt%T-50 wt%D-HNTs recorded dispersion effectiveness of 33.9, 74.8, 65.4, 78.6 and 88.2 vol% respectively at 24 wt% surfactant concentration. It can be deduced that an increase in the surfactant concentrations loaded onto HNTs improved the dispersion effectiveness of the produced particulate dispersants. Largely, the 24 wt% CFP-based surfactant-HNTs dispersants showed considerable promise in crude oil dispersion in seawater.