The few existing surface complexation models (SCM) for the brine-oil interface have important limitations: the chemistry of each crude oil is not considered, they cannot capture the water/non-polar hydrocarbons surface charge, the interactions between Na + and the acid sites are not included, and the equilibrium constants for the adsorption reactions are not validated against experimental data. We address the aforementioned constraints by proposing an improved diffuse-layer SCM for the oil-brine interface. The new model accounts for the chemistry of crude oils by considering surface sites linearly dependent on the TAN (total acid number) and TBN (total base number). We define weak sites to account for the negative surface charge observed for non-polar hydrocarbons in water. We optimize the parameters of our model by fitting the model to reported zeta potential measurements of oil in aqueous solutions. When we validate the optimized model against different experimental data sets, it generally shows a good performance in predicting the surface charge of oil in different brines with different pHs. We show that the acid and base numbers are only useful as a qualitative estimation of the distribution of polar groups at the oil surface, and more sophisticated analysis is necessary to quantify the chemistry of the oil-brine interface.

We suggest two new thermodynamic models for the adsorption of ions to the brine/carbonate and brine/crude oil interface. We calibrate the model parameters to the ionic adsorption and zeta potential data. We then investigate the effect of the rock and oil surface charges on the dissolution, wettability alteration, and mechanical properties of the carbonates in the context of modified-salinity water flooding in the North Sea chalk reservoirs. We modify a charge-distribution multi-site complexation (CD-MUSIC) model and optimize its parameters by fitting the model to a large data set of calcite surface zeta potential in presence of different brine compositions. We also modify and optimize a diffuse layer model for the oil/brine interface. We then use the optimized surface complexation models with a finite-volume solver to model the two phase reactive transport of oil and brine in a chalk reservoir, including the impact of dissolution, polar-group adsorption, and compaction on the relative permeability of chalk to water and oil. We compare the simulation results with the published experimental data.

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The complex physicochemical interactions in the calcite-brine-crude oil system, triggered by the injection of modified salinity water (MSW) into the reservoir, are modeled by several researchers. However, the proposed models are either not consistent with a wettability alteration mechanism or cannot explain the observed improved oil recovery in chalk. We propose a new methodology denominated “Available Adsorption Sites” (AAS) that assesses the wettability alteration as a combined effect of a chemical and electrostatic contribution. Thus, we describe mathematically the interactions between the polar groups in the oil phase and the chalk by considering analogy with the thermodynamics of adsorption of an ion on a charged surface. The chalk wetting properties depend on the number of sites available for the adsorption of oleic polar groups at the mineral surface and the electrical potential at the rock-brine and brine-oil interfaces. We evaluate how the AAS parameter correlates with the remaining oil saturation from spontaneous imbibition tests on chalk samples. This approach is not only useful for the predictive evaluation of the outcome of MSW in chalk reservoirs but can also be integrated in reactive transport models and assess the flow of organic contaminants (e.g., naphtenic acids) in chalk aquifers. The model can potentially be applied to other carbonates.