Lignin adsorption in sandpacks during horizontal flow using UV–Vis spectrometry as a quantification tool

Dwindling petroleum resources is related to the challenges facing oil exploitation from the reservoir and encouraged finding alternatives to traditional oil production projects. A new trend of using biomaterial to facilitate oil production showed to be promising. Among the biomaterials, lignin biomass has been introduced as a beneficial biopolymer in the chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) applications. However, the utilization of lignin materials for oil reservoir treatment requires a deeper understanding of the lignin behavior while flowing in porous media. The current study aims at assessing the lignin’s flow characteristic in different mineralogical surface characteristics. The study emphasizes lignin concentration and adsorption as the critical factors in CEOR. A controlled sandpack column with 95% quartz and 5% clay mineral was fabricated to evaluate the lignin concentration and the adsorption at high salinity conditions. UV–Vis spectrometer was implemented as a quantification tool to analyze the effluent of lignin. According to the results, lignin concentration was observed to be decreased considerably during the first injected pore volume. The lignin concentration dropped by 22–88% from its initial values. The highest cumulative adsorption rate was found to be at 40 mg/g at the kaolinite surface. The lignin adsorption in the presence of illite and Montmorillonite was noticed to be similar. The results indicated the proportional relation between lignin concentration and the adsorption amount during the flow. As the study conducted on seawater salinity, the lignin adsorption rate on quartz and clay mineral surface was significantly high, despite the hydrophobicity of the clay surfaces.