Gerbovits D.A., Nagy R., Puskás S., 2026, Methodological Evaluation of Surface Tension Measurement Techniques for Commercial Surfactant Additives Relevant to Enhanced Oil Recovery Applications, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 124, 259-264.
The transition toward a circular bioeconomy requires the development of sustainable surfactant systems suitable for industrial applications such as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Reliable characterization of surface properties represents a necessary step in surfactant screening prior to application-specific performance evaluation. This study presents a methodological comparison of pendant drop and spinning bubble tensiometry for the analysis of commercially available surfactant additives. Surface tension measurements were conducted in the concentration range of 0.01–15.0 g/L at 25 °C. Strong linear correlations were observed between the two techniques, with Pearson correlation coefficients between 0.973 and 0.978 and coefficients of determination above 0.94. The investigated additives reduced the surface tension of water (72 mN/m) to values below 30 mN/m, confirming their pronounced surface activity. The results demonstrate that spinning bubble tensiometry provides reliable trend-following capability and can serve as a rapid screening tool in surfactant development workflows. The validated methodology offers a robust experimental framework that can be extended to the future evaluation of sustainable surfactant systems.
