The safe trapping of carbon dioxide (CO2) in deep saline aquifers is one of the major concerns of CO2 sequestration. The amount of capillary trapping is dominated by the capillary pressure of water and CO2 inside the reservoir, which in turn is controlled by the interfacial tension (IFT) and the contact angle (CA) of CO2/water/rock systems. The measurement of IFT and CA could be very challenging at reservoir conditions, especially in the presence of toxic cocontaminants. Thus, the ability to accurately predict these interfacial properties at reservoir conditions is very advantageous. Although the majority of existing molecular dynamics (MD) studies of CO2/water/mineral systems were able to capture the trends in IFT and CA variations with pressure and temperature, their predictions often deviated from experimental data, possibly due to erroneous models and/or overlooked chemical reactions. The objective of this study was to improve the MD predictions of IFT and CA of CO2/water/quartz systems at various pressure and temperature conditions by (i) considering the chemical reactions between CO2 and water and (ii) using a new molecular model for α-quartz surface. The results showed that the presence of carbonic acid at the CO2/water interface improved the predictions of IFT, especially at low temperature and high pressure where more CO2 dissolution occurs. On the other hand, the effect on CA was minor. The slight decrease in CA observed across the pressure range investigated could be attributed to an increase in the total number of H-bonds between fluid molecules and quartz surface.

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The impact of rock characteristics on the complex fluid-rock interactions is investigated  MEs enhance the immiscible displacement (or mobilization) of NAPL by decreasing IFT and oil droplet size  MEs promote the desorption of NAPL from rock surfaces (or solubilization) thereby altering their wettability  At low concentration, MEs outperform surfactants in rocks containing carbonate cements

Surfactant-enhanced aquifer remediation is often performed to overcome the capillary forces that keep residual NAPL phases trapped within contaminated aquifers. The surfactant selection and displacement mechanism usually depend on the nature of NAPL constituents. For example, micellar solubilization is often used to cleanup DNAPLs from aquifers whereas mobilization is desirable in aquifers contaminated by LNAPLs. Although the majority of crude oils are LNAPLs, they often contain heavy organic macromolecules such as asphaltenes that are classified as DNAPLs. Asphaltenes contain surface-active components that tend to adsorb on rocks, altering their wettability. Previous studies revealed that surfactants that formed Winsor type III microemulsions could promote both mobilization and solubilization. However the extent by which these two mechanisms occur is still unclear, particularly in oil-contaminated aquifers. In this study we investigated the remediation of oil-contaminated aquifers using an environmentally friendly surfactant such as n-Dodecyl β-D-maltoside. Focus was given on asphaltenes to better understand the mechanisms of surfactant cleanup. Through phase behavior, spontaneous imbibition, dynamic interfacial tension and contact angle measurements, we showed that microemulsions formed by this surfactant are able to mobilize bulk NAPL (containing 9wt.% asphaltenes) in the porous rock and solubilize DNAPL (i.e., 4-6wt.% adsorbed asphaltenes) from the rock surface. Spontaneous imbibition tests, in particular, indicated that the ratio of mobilized to solubilized NAPL is about 6:1. Furthermore, aging the cores in NAPL beyond 3days allowed for more NAPL to be trapped in the large pores of the rock but did not alter the amount of asphaltenes adsorbed on the mineral surface.