Abstract
Wettability has a dramatic impact on fluid displacement in porous media. The pore level physics of one liquid being displaced by another is a strong function of the wetting characteristics of the channel walls. However, the quantification of the effect is still not clear. Conflicting data have shown that in some oil displacement experiments in rocks, the volume of trapped oil falls as the porous media becomes less water-wet, while in some microfluidic experiments the volume of residual oil is higher in oil-wet media. The reasons for this discrepancy are not fully understood. In this study, we analyzed oil displacement by water injection in two microfluidic porous media with different wettability characteristics that had capillaries with constrictions. The resulting oil ganglia size distribution at the end of water injection was quantified by image processing. The results show that in the oil-wet porous media, the displacement front was more uniform and the final volume of remaining oil was smaller, with a much smaller number of large oil ganglia and a larger number of small oil ganglia, when compared to the water-wet media.
Highlights
Wettability plays a major role in many natural and industrial processes, such as oil recovery, CO2 sequestration, mineral processing, soil mechanics, coating, printing and many others
In the particular case of immiscible liquid displacement in porous media, the wall wettability has a dramatic impact on the efficiency of the displacement process [1,2,3,4]
The effect of wettability on immiscible displacement in porous media is a direct consequence of the complex pore-level physics
Summary
Wettability plays a major role in many natural and industrial processes, such as oil recovery, CO2 sequestration, mineral processing, soil mechanics, coating, printing and many others. In the particular case of immiscible liquid displacement in porous media, the wall wettability has a dramatic impact on the efficiency of the displacement process [1,2,3,4]. The effect of wettability on immiscible displacement in porous media is a direct consequence of the complex pore-level physics. The sequence of pore invasion is a direct function of the viscosity ratio between the displaced and invading phases, the ratio of viscous to capillary forces and the wettability of the walls. The mechanisms by which one phase displaces the other in a single pore channel, varies as a function of the local flow conditions and wall wettability [5,6,7,8]. Despite the large volume of experimental data, conflicting evidence still exists on the effect of wettability on the efficiency of liquid displacement in porous media
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