Chevron and ZL Chemicals Partnered to Commercialize Advanced Surfactant Technology

In July 2026, Chevron Technical Center and ZL Chemicals Ltd. signed a strategic technology licensing agreement to boost the commercialization of Chevron's advanced surfactant technology. This partnership aims to achieve enhanced oil recovery for the global oil and gas industry. Under this partnership, ZL Chemicals aims to expand access to innovative chemical solutions. These solutions enhance hydrocarbon recovery from unconventional reservoirs. It also aims to market the technology through its new Vantis brand.

Features of Advanced Surfactant Technology

• Meets Specific Requirements of the Industrial Applications: This technology shows a balance of structure, ingredients, and polar character. It also controls the abilities of multi-functional power surfactants.
• Critical Chemical or Functional Properties: This technology shows excellent properties such as pH buffer stability, corrosion prevention, and biostability. They are driven by the addition of many specialized additives. These additives are designed to meet BS-VI emission standards’ requirements.
• Combined Effect Action: This technology combines the power of emulsification and demulsification even at lower temperatures. This opens doors to reducing the energy cost per component in parts cleaning.

The collaboration combines ZL Chemicals’ capabilities in field deployment and commercialization and Chevron’s expertise in developing high-performance surfactant technologies. The Vantis portfolio of ZL Chemicals is expected to support well optimization, enhanced oil recovery, and improved reservoir performance. It will assist operators in boosting production while extending the life of current assets.

Benefits of Advanced Surfactant Technology

• The technology exhibits versatile properties such as cleansing, emulsification, foaming, wetting, stabilization, dispersion, and solubilization.
• The technology is indispensable in industries like food processing, cosmetics, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals.
• The technology potentially reduces surface tension, enables micelle formation, contaminant removal, foam generation, lubrication, and conditioning.
• The technology improves the smoothness and glide of products and is becoming essential in personal care and cosmetic formulations.
• The technology covers surfactants, which are essential ingredients in day-to-day products, such as personal care items, and industrial applications such as lubricants, emulsifiers, and detergents.

Impact on the Chemicals and Materials Industry

The surfactants play an integral role in the form of anionic surfactants as cleaning powerhouses, nonionic surfactants as gentle players, and cationic surfactants for conditioning and disinfecting. The industrial cleaning applications revolve around metalworking and processing, parts cleaning and degreasing, and industrial coating and painting. Moreover, they have wide applications in oil and gas industries, including enhanced oil recovery, drilling fluids, and oil spill remediation.

The complex product formulations impose certain challenges, which further open up new opportunities. These challenges demand better research and development into the interaction of surfactants and other ingredients. More surfactants are required as major ingredients that help combine substances in the case of complex product formulations.

However, enhanced oil recovery techniques use surfactants to liberate the residual oil. The traditional extraction methods recover 20%-40% of the reservoir oil, while large quantities of oil remain trapped in rock pores. The small improvements in surfactant efficiency result in millions of dollars in recovered crude oil.

Advancements are made in surfactant carriers for enhanced oil recovery. There is a key role of carbon materials, inorganic nanoparticles, polymeric surfactants, polymers, and supramolecular systems. They hold immense potential to improve oil recovery rates and greatly interact with reservoir rocks. On the other hand, there is great importance of sustainable and economically viable enhanced oil recovery methods.

Impact on the Surfactants Industry

The global surfactants market size is estimated at USD 48.01 billion in 2025 and is anticipated to reach around USD 76.81 billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 5.36% from 2025 to 2035.

According to Precedence Research, advanced surfactant technology is revolutionizing the chemicals and materials industry by offering surfactant injection, which is a widely used chemical-enhanced oil recovery method that aims to make the oil more mobile and easier to displace from the reservoir rock. Research studies focus on optimizing the formulation of surfactant solutions and evaluating their high efficiency. They are widely used in enhanced oil recovery processes due to their toxicity, production cost, and potential to adsorb onto the reservoir surfaces.

Several technical challenges are imposed by surfactants, due to which there are limited applications and lower effectiveness of enhanced oil recovery techniques in carbonate reservoirs. These issues include high clay content that results in the precipitation of calcium carbonate and calcium hydroxide and significant surfactant adsorption.

However, the applications in enhanced oil recovery deal with the recent development of carrier systems for the targeted and efficient delivery of surfactants. There are various types of carrier systems, out of which supramolecular technologies have gained attention. They exhibit unique self-assembly properties and the ability to form complex, functional structures.

Impact on the Low Foam Surfactants Industry 

The global low foam surfactants market size is calculated at USD 17.04 billion in 2025 and is predicted to increase from USD 17.97 billion in 2026 to approximately USD 27.45 billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 5.44% from 2025 to 2035.

According to Precedence Research, advanced surfactant technology has transformed the low foam surfactants industry due to the need for operational efficiency in automated industrial processes and the rising demand for eco-friendly cleaning agents. Moreover, the strict environmental regulations favor biodegradable formulations. 

In addition, the challenges include the operational failures in industrial systems, due to which optical sensors misread liquid levels and cause many other problems too. Due to this, a controlled and minimal foam is specified by metal fabrication shops, food and beverage plants, and paper mills. They also demand adequate emulsification of oils and particulates, wetting, and detergency.

However, low foam surfactants are widely used for industrial cleaning in automated and recirculating systems. The industries are focused on optimizing their cleaning formulations for operational efficiency and superior performance.

About Chevron Technical Center and ZL Chemicals Ltd.

Chevron Technical Center operates many specialized global technology and engineering centers, such as the Richmond Technology Center, Engineering and Innovation Excellence Center, Ames Technology Center, and Integrated Operations Center. These operations are localized in the U.S., India, and Europe. The major commercial and operational offerings of this company are advanced surfactant technology, Techron fuel additives, lower carbon technologies, and digital twin and process simulation. The product and innovation portfolio includes technology and chemical licensing, lower-carbon and biofuel technologies, upstream and deepwater innovations, and digital and integrated operations.

On the other hand, ZL Chemicals Ltd. specializes in developing and manufacturing polymer technologies and advanced polyacrylamide for the oil and gas industry. The core product offerings of this company include produced water reuse solutions, enhanced oil recovery, and hydraulic fracturing. The global headquarters are located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The R&D focus areas are produced water reuse, advanced surfactants, and hydraulic fracturing. The core product and service offerings are specialty polymers and surfactants, hydraulic fracturing technology, dispersion equipment, turnkey field services, and produced water reuse technology.