Relationship between wetting and capillary pressure in a crude oil/brine/rock system: From nano-scale to core-scale

JOURNAL OF COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE

卷:562

Article

Rucker, M.^1,2  Bartels, W-B^2,3  Garfi, G.⁴  Shams, M.⁴  Bultreys, T.^1,5  Boone, M.⁶  Pieterse, S.²  Maitland, G. C.¹  Krevor, S.⁴  Cnudde, V^3,5  Mahani, H.²  Berg, S.^1,2,4  Georgiadis, A.^1,2  Luckham, P. F.¹ 

[1] Imperial Coll London, Chem Engn, London SW7 2AZ, England

[2] Shell Global Solut Int BV, NL-2288 GS Rijswijk, Netherlands

[3] Univ Utrecht, Earth Sci Dept, NL-3584 CD Utrecht, Netherlands

[4] Imperial Coll London, Earth Sci & Engn, London SW7 2AZ, England

[5] Univ Ghent, UGCT PProGRess, Krijgslaan 281 S8, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

[6] TESCAN XRE, Bollenbergen 2B Bus 1, B-9052 Ghent, Belgium

关键词: Surface roughness;    Wetting;    Atomic force microscopy (AFM);    Core initialization;    Capillary pressure;    Disjoining pressure;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jcis.2019.11.086

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Hypothesis: The wetting behaviour is a key property of a porous medium that controls hydraulic conductivity in multiphase flow. While many porous materials, such as hydrocarbon reservoir rocks, are initially wetted by the aqueous phase, surface active components within the non-wetting phase can alter the wetting state of the solid. Close to the saturation endpoints wetting phase fluid films of nanometre thickness impact the wetting alteration process. The properties of these films depend on the chemical characteristics of the system. Here we demonstrate that surface texture can be equally important and introduce a novel workflow to characterize the wetting state of a porous medium. Experiments: We investigated the formation of fluid films along a rock surface imaged with atomic force microscopy using zeta-potential measurements and a computational model for drainage. The results were compared to spontaneous imbibition test to link sub-pore-scale and core-scale wetting characteristics of the rock. Findings: The results show a dependency between surface coverage by oil, which controls the wetting alteration, and the macroscopic wetting response. The surface-area coverage is dependent on the capillary pressure applied during primary drainage. Close to the saturation endpoint, where the change in saturation was minor, the oil-solid contact changed more than 80%. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.

【 授权许可】

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