Principle and Potential of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Applied to the Study of Fluids in Porous Media

Abstract

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been used in recent years in many fields, including the chemical and petroleum industries, and medicine. Following a review of the basic principles of these two techniques, their applications concerning the study of fluids in porous media are presented. The use of NMR in petrophysics is limited to the study of porosity, permeability, wettability, and the determination of the pore size distribution and saturation in a sample. MRI is an extremely useful technique, not only as a tomographic approach but, above all, because, it helps today to identify certain properties, such as velocity images. This article also presents the results obtained at Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP) concerning the study of wettability by NMR and the use of a high magnetic field to visualize fluids in porous media. In the future, a major potential use of NMR for the study of fluids in porous media resides in the extrapolation of the results obtained by spectroscopy to wireline logs, and to imaging.