Quantifying the Effect of Salinity on Oilfield Water-in-Oil Emulsion Stability

Ling, Nicholas N. A.; Haber, Agnes; Graham, Brendan F.; Aman, Zachary M.; May, Eric F.; Fridjonsson, Einar O.; Johns, Michael L.

doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.8b02143

Cited by 45 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This observation confirms that microdispersion only significantly appears in low-salinity water. Similar observations for the effect of salinity have been widely reported for water-in-crude oil macroemulsions in the literature [50][51][52][53] . The separation efficiency of crude oil and low-salinity water is much lower than that for high-salinity water.…”

Section: Correlation Between Wettability Alteration and The Microdispsupporting

confidence: 88%

Evaluating physicochemical properties of crude oil as indicators of low-salinity–induced wettability alteration in carbonate minerals

Song

Rezaee

Guo

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

the injection of low-salinity brine enhances oil recovery by altering the mineral wettability in carbonate reservoirs. However, the reported effectiveness of low-salinity water varies significantly in the literature, and the underlying mechanism of wettability alteration is controversial. In this work, we investigate the relationships between characteristics of crude oils and the oils' response to low-salinity water in a spontaneous imbibition test, aiming (1) to identify suitable indicators of the effectiveness of low-salinity water and (2) to evaluate possible mechanisms of low-salinity-induced wettability alteration, including rock/oil charge repulsion and microdispersion formation. Seven oils are tested by spontaneous imbibition and fully characterized in terms of their acidity, zeta potential, interfacial tension, microdispersion propensity, water-soluble organics content and saturate-aromatic-resinasphaltene fractionation. For the first time, the effectiveness of low-salinity water is found to positively correlate with the oil interfacial tension in low-salinity water. Oils with higher interfacial activity are found to respond more positively to low-salinity water. Moreover, cryogenic transmission electron microscopy images suggest that microdispersion is essentially macroemulsion, and its formation is an effective indicator-but not the root cause-of wettability alteration. The repulsive zeta potential for the rock and the oil in low-salinity water is found to be an insufficient condition for wettability alteration in carbonate minerals.

show abstract

Section: Correlation Between Wettability Alteration and The Microdispsupporting

confidence: 88%

Evaluating physicochemical properties of crude oil as indicators of low-salinity–induced wettability alteration in carbonate minerals

Song

Rezaee

Guo

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When nanoparticles were absent, the IFT was gradually reduced with increasing NaCl content (Figs. and ), consistent with results for other surfactant–oil systems (Al‐Sahhaf et al, ; Gaonkar, ; Ling et al, ).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

Effect of Nanoparticles on Viscosity and Interfacial Tension of Aqueous Surfactant Solutions at High Salinity and High Temperature

Ivanova

Phan

Barifcani

et al. 2019

J Surfact & Detergents

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Surfactant flooding has widely been used as one of the chemically enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. Surfactants majorly influence the interfacial tension, γ, between oil and brine phase and control capillary number and relative permeability behavior and, thus, influence ultimate recovery. Additives, such as nanoparticles, are known to affect surfactant properties and are regarded as promising EOR agents. However, their detailed interactions with surfactants are not well understood. Thus, in this work, we examined the influence of silica nanoparticles on the ability of surfactants to lower γ and to increase viscosity at various temperatures and salinities. Results show that the presence of nanoparticles decreased γ between n‐decane and various surfactant formulations by up to 20%. It was found that γ of nanoparticles–surfactant solutions passed through a minimum at 35 °C when salt was added. Furthermore, the viscosity of cationic surfactant solutions increased at specific salt (1.5 wt.%) and nanoparticle (0.05 wt.%) concentrations. Results illustrate that selected nanoparticles–surfactant formulations appear very promising for EOR as they can lower brine/n‐decane interfacial tension and act as viscosity modifiers of the injected fluids.

show abstract

“…In our experiments, the emulsifier concentration was kept below 20 wt % as higher concentration results in the formation of visually excessive foam upon emulsion formation. The inert salts (Sodium nitrate and calcium nitrate) are typically added to these explosive emulsions to extend their shelf life, albeit it typically only at effectively trace amounts (< 1 wt %) of the oxidiser phase [29]. In our experiments they were added at 1 and 5 wt % so as to maximise their effect on initial emulsion droplet size.…”

Section: Materials and Experimental Matrixmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this case all emulsions are observed to remain stable over a 3-month period. Increased salinity has been observed to increase the stability of water-in-oil emulsions with minimal differences observed for concentrations in excess of 0.1 wt % [29].…”

Section: The Effect Of Ammonium Nitrate Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explosive Emulsion Characterisation using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Hayward

Ling

Johns

2019

Propellants Explo Pyrotec

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Explosive emulsions are frequently employed in mining operations as they offer a comparatively robust, safe and effective product. These are typically formulated as concentrated ammonium nitrate solutions dispersed in an oil phase in the form of a highly concentrated water‐in‐oil emulsion. Being highly concentrated, determining the droplet size distribution (which is critical to assessing long‐term emulsion stability and explosive effectiveness) of these emulsions is challenging. Here we demonstrate that this is readily achieved using bench‐top Nuclear Magnetic resonance (NMR) Pulsed Field Gradient (PFG) techniques. The initial mean droplet size is shown to decrease with an increase in the concentration of ammonium nitrate or emulsifier or when inert salt was added to the composition, it was found to increase as the concentration of the aqueous (oxidiser) phase was increased. The emulsion droplet size distributions were observed to remain constant for a 3‐month period over the composition range explored.

show abstract

Quantifying the Effect of Salinity on Oilfield Water-in-Oil Emulsion Stability

Cited by 45 publications

References 46 publications

Evaluating physicochemical properties of crude oil as indicators of low-salinity–induced wettability alteration in carbonate minerals

Evaluating physicochemical properties of crude oil as indicators of low-salinity–induced wettability alteration in carbonate minerals

Effect of Nanoparticles on Viscosity and Interfacial Tension of Aqueous Surfactant Solutions at High Salinity and High Temperature

Explosive Emulsion Characterisation using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About