Wettability Alteration of the Quartz Surface in the Presence of Metal Cations

Abstract

Experimental research was conducted to clarify the wettability alteration mechanism in the presence of metal cations. Wettability was studied by measuring the contact angle on a quartz–crude oil–water system. The quartz surface is aged in an asphaltene/toluene solution to study the effect of aging time, asphaltene concentration, water film on the quartz surface, and metal cations in the water film on wettability alteration of the quartz surface. The quartz surface property is characterized with ζ-potential measurements and infrared (IR) spectroscopy to clarify the wettability alteration mechanism. Results show that quartz surface becomes more oil-wet with the increase of the asphaltene concentration. The quartz with a pure water film shows less oil-wetting after soaking compared to the dry quartz surface, while the presence of metal cations in the water film can improve oil wettability of the surface. ζ-Potential measurements show that Ca2+ and Mg2+ compress a diffused double layer of quartz powder more effectively than Na+, which makes asphaltene adsorption easier because of the reduced electrostatic repulsion. IR spectra analysis indicates that asphaltene molecules can interact with hydroxyls on the quartz surface by polar interactions and asphaltene can be absorbed on the quartz surface with ion binding of hydrated divalent metal cations.

Thin liquid films in improved oil recovery from low-salinity brine

“…The adsorption is pH-dependent, indicating that there is cation exchange with H + as well. Other studies have confirmed that the presence of Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ are important for the adsorption of asphaltenes on quartz [27,28]. Thus it is plausible that the two chemical mechanisms can also occur on quartz surfaces, not just on clays, and may be responsible for part of the LSE observed in the clay-free rocks.…”

“…At 1 mM, the zeta potential for all three brine/silica dispersions is − 33 mV so that the change with salinity is more pronounced for the larger cations. At the same concentration, the brine/rock and brine/oil zeta potentials tend to be more negative if the brine contains monovalent cations as opposed to divalent cations [29,32,27]. This may be because divalents have a stronger influence on the ionic strength and electrostatic screening as evident in Eq.…”

Preparation and Performance Evaluation of Fatty Amine Polyoxyethylene Ether Diethyl Disulfonate for Enhanced Oil Recovery in High‐Temperature and High‐Salinity Reservoirs

“…The contact angles of FPDD surfactant solution on a lipophilic quartz-slide surface were measured using the Fig. 3 The IFT between the FPDD surfactant and crude oil at 90 C pendant drop method (Qi, Wang, He, Li, & Xu, 2013). The wettability alteration performance was evaluated by the contact angle variation before and after adsorption of the FPDD surfactant on the surface of the lipophilic quartz slide.…”

Surfactant‐Induced Wettability Alteration of Oil‐Wet Sandstone Surface: Mechanisms and Its Effect on Oil Recovery

“…The contact angles were determined by the sessile drop method using a JC2000D contact angle measurement apparatus (Shanghai Zhongchen Digital Technology Co., Ltd., China) at room temperature [20]. Quartz plates were used to simulate the sandstone surface during the contact angle measurement.…”