Effects of Crude Oil Components on Rock Wettability

Abstract

Published in Petroleum Transactions, AIME, Vol. 216, 1959, pages 330–333.Paper presented at the AIChE-SPE Joint Symposium in Kansas City, Mo., May 17–20, 1959. Abstract The effects of crude oil components on the wettabilities of sandstone and limestone were investigated. Fractions containing components differing in molecular weight and molecular structure were obtained from crude oils by distillation, extraction and chromatography. Individual fractions were then tested for their effects on rock wettability. Tests indicate that sandstone wettability may be changed by a complex variety of surfactants varying both in molecular structure and molecular weight. Limestone appears to be particularly sensitive to basic, nitrogenous surfactants. Introduction Investigations in recent years have shown that petroleum reservoir rock wettability can exert a significant influence on the efficiency with which oil can be produced by water flooding. While most reservoirs are presumably water-wet, they may range in their degree of water-wettability from near-neutral to strongly water-wet. Reservoir wettabilities other than strongly water-wet are likely to be induced by adsorption of surface-active components from the crude oil on the pore walls of reservoir rock. Little is known, however, about the nature of the surface-active materials which are likely to be adsorbed by the reservoir rock. Due to the complexity of crude oils, attempts made in the past to isolate these surface-active components have met with only limited success. It is probable that many different types of surface-active materials are indigenous to crude oils and that many of these may be adsorbed to varying degrees by reservoir rock. This was explored in the studies discussed in this paper.

QCM-D study of nanoparticle interactions

“…From microscopic to reservoir scales, a large number of studies have been devoted to understanding the wettability of reservoir rocks, which plays a fundamental role in designing more efficient oil recovery processes. [212][213][214][215][216][217][218][219][220][221][222][223] In general, due to polar functional groups of asphaltenes, they are anticipated to be responsible for the wettability alteration of reservoir rocks. [214] However, there are diverse evidences on the strong role of asphaltenes in influencing reservoir rock wettability.…”

“…[214] However, there are diverse evidences on the strong role of asphaltenes in influencing reservoir rock wettability. [215] Radke et al made great efforts to understand the mechanism of wettability alteration, and found that the negligible solubility of asphaltenes in water cannot explain why a water film prevent asphaltene adsorption and wettability alteration of reservoir rocks. [216] Furthermore…”

 Brine-Dependent Recovery Processes (Smart-Water/Low-Salinity-Water) in Carbonate and Sandstone Petroleum Reservoirs: Review of Laboratory-Field Studies, Interfacial Mechanisms and Modeling Attempts

“…Crude oil usually contains both acids and bases that are ionizable and exhibit surface activity [69]. The ionizable acidic and basic surface-active groups of the crude oil form as a result of the presence of typical heteroelements (like nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur) found in oil [70]. Petroleum bases are identified as heterocyclic aromatics with nitrogen atom, quantified by basic number (BN); while the quantity of carboxylic materials in crude oil are used in characterizing petroleum acids, quantified by acid number (AN).…”

Laboratory investigation of dense non-aqueous phase liquid migration and remediation in mixed wettability soils monitored by pressure transducers

“…In hydrophilic porous material, the grains are first coated by water, then the NAPL and finally air as the least wetting phase. However, research has shown that some materials are naturally intermediate-or NAPL-wet or they can become so through long-term exposure to NAPLs (Denekas et al 1959;Powers and Tamblin 1995;Powers et al 1996;Abdallah et al 2007). This change in wettability can have dramatic effects on the movement of the NAPL through the subsurface.…”

“…Early research examining the migration of NAPLs in the subsurface was focused on the removal of oil from reservoir rocks (Denekas et al 1959). This research was quickly converted into use for the removal of LNAPLs from the subsurface; in fact, many of the methodologies used for contaminant clean-up have a basis in reservoir rock engineering.…”