Wettability measurements on two sandstones: an experimental investigation before and after CO2 flooding
Cut Aja Fauziah A D , Emad A. Al-Khdheeawi A B , Ahmed Barifcani A and Stefan Iglauer C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Western Australia School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Discipline of Petroleum Engineering, Curtin University, Kensington, WA 6151, Australia.
B Petroleum Technology Department, University of Technology, Baghdad, Iraq.
C School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA 6027, Australia.
D Corresponding author. Email: cutaja.fauziah@postgrad.curtin.edu.au
The APPEA Journal 60(1) 117-123 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ19099
Submitted: 5 December 2019 Accepted: 16 January 2020 Published: 15 May 2020
Abstract
Wettability of rock–fluid systems is an important for controlling the carbon dioxide (CO2) movement and the capacities of CO2 geological trapping mechanisms. Although contact angle measurement is considered a potentially scalable parameter for evaluation of the wettability characteristics, there are still large uncertainties associated with the contact angle measurement for CO2–brine–rock systems. Thus, this study experimentally examined the wettability, before and after flooding, of two different samples of sandstone: Berea and Bandera grey sandstones. For both samples, several sets of flooding of brine (5 wt % NaCl + 1 wt % KCl in deionised water), CO2-saturated (live) brine and supercritical CO2 were performed. The contact angle measurements were conducted for the CO2–sandstone system at two different reservoir pressures (10 and 15 MPa) and at a reservoir temperature of 323 K. The results showed that both the advancing and receding contact angles of the sandstone samples after flooding were higher than that measured before flooding (i.e. after CO2 injection the sandstones became more CO2-wet). Moreover, the Bandera grey samples had higher contact angles than Berea sandstone. Thus, we conclude that CO2 flooding altered the sandstone wettability to be more CO2-wet, and Berea sandstone had a higher CO2 storage capacity than Bandera grey sandstone.
Keywords: Bandera grey sandstone, Berea sandstone, carbon capture storage, contact angle, CO2 injection.
Cut Aja Fauziah is a PhD student in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Curtin University, WA. She has completed a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a Master’s in Metallurgical Engineering. Her research interests are wettability, CO2 storage and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). |
Emad Al-Khdheeawi is a PhD candidate at the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Curtin University, WA. He has BSc and MSc degrees in Petroleum Engineering. Emad’s research interests are in wettability, CO2 geo-storage, reservoir simulation, rock and fluid properties, EOR and multi-phase flow through porous media. |
Ahmed Barifcani has been an Associate Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Curtin University, WA since 2006. He has BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham UK. He is a Fellow and a Chartered Scientist of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (FIChemE & CSci). He has many publications on flow assurance, LNG EOR and CO2 capture and storage. He has over 30 years of industrial experience in operation design, engineering, construction, project management, and research and development in the fields of oil refining, gas processing, petrochemicals, flow assurance and CO2 capture. |
Stefan Iglauer is a Professor in the School of Engineering at Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia. His research interests are in CO2 geo-storage, wettability and multi-phase flow through porous rock with a particular focus on atomic to pore-scale processes. Stefan has authored more than 130 technical publications; he holds a PhD in Material Science from Oxford Brookes University (UK) and an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Paderborn (Germany). |
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