Influence of ionic composition in aqueous solution on wettability of rock surface-experiment and economics evaluation

In this study, the influence of different ionic composition in aqueous solution on the minerals surface wettability was studied. The differences effect of monovalent ion and divalent ions onto the wettability alteration were studied. The anions were Cl^- and SO₄^2-. The SO₄^2- could make the minerals surface more hydrophilic. Besides, the influence of NaCl, MgCl₂, CaCl₂, Na₂SO₄, K₂SO₄ and MgSO₄ on the mineral wettability alteration were studied. The results indicated that divalent ions showed significant impact on the minerals wettability alteration, compared with monovalent ion. The reasons were due to the fact that divalent ions showed higher ions adsorption than monovalent ion, and divalent ions have higher effect on compressing the electric double layer. The static contact angle and dynamic contact angle were measured. Different heavy oils were studied, including heavy oil with 100 ppm, heavy oil, heavy oil without resins, heavy oil without asphaltenes. The results showed that the asphaltenes would make it difficult for the heavy oils to liberate from minerals, thus decreasing the oil drops contact angle. Then the resins would decrease the heavy oil contact angles. CaCl₂/MgCl₂ and K₂SO₄ have synergistic effect on the change of the minerals surface wettability. Atomic force microscope (AFM) measurement indicated that the ions would effectively decrease the interaction force on the surface of heavy oil-minerals, which was beneficial to the heavy oil liberation. The roughness measurement indicated that the different ions would effectively increase the minerals surface wettability.