Fines migration is an important mechanism that describes the effects of low salinity waterflooding (LSW) in sandstone reservoirs. The fine detachment has a significant role in controlling fine migration. The interactions between the fine and the rock surfaces are described by Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (DVLO) theory. These interactions are governed by several physicochemical parameters such as zeta potential, ion composition, pH and temperature. In this paper, sensitivity analyzes are performed to evaluate the parameters contributions on the total surface energy. Using available data, four correlations were developed to assist in the sensitivity analyzes. The results show that the pH and the ionic concentration of 𝑁𝑎𝐶𝑙 have a large impact on the repulsive forces, whereas temperature plays a minor role in the total energy.

Low salinity waterflooding (LSW) is an emerging enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique in which the salinity of the injected water is substantially reduced to improve oil production from sandstone reservoirs. While a significant number of laboratory tests have been carried out to investigate the impact of LSW in the literature, publications on modeling of this process are not so frequent due to the struggling in describe this phenomenon. Different approaches were proposed to model the wettability alteration during LSW, including salting-in, multiple ion exchange (MIE) and double layer expansion (DLE). In this paper a brief literature review is presented, describing the main mechanisms that have been proposed to explain the effects of wettability alteration during LSW, also gathering different mathematical models available in the literature.