The wettability of mineral surfaces is an important parameter
influencing
the fluid flow in geological formations intended for the storage of
carbon dioxide (CO2). Hence, the effects of the layer charge
of clay minerals on their wettability should shed light on the variation
of the solid–fluid interaction and its impact on the contact
angle and water film energetics in CO2–water–clay
mineral systems. Given the nanoscale thickness of the films formed
on mineral surfaces and the difficulty of directly evaluating the
related energetics, we use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate
the effects of layer charge on the contact angle (water vs CO2) and the energetics of water films in clay slit-pore systems.
An increase in the negative layer charge is shown to decrease the
contact angle and increase the thickness of the water film. Permeation
free energy calculations indicate that the amount of work needed to
make the CO2 molecules approach the surface increases with
increasing negative layer charge. These findings allow the establishment
of a correlation between the contact angle and film energetics and
thus enable us to propose a novel approach to complement direct contact
angle calculations. Moreover, the present analysis of the structure
and dynamics of the adsorbed water provides us with new insights into
the change in the film energetics from an atomic-scale perspective,
which cannot be gained using the widely used thermodynamic model;
the connectivity of the adsorbed water molecules on the surface explains
the effects of the layer charge on the contact angle and film energetics.