In this work experimental
and theoretical evaluations of the wettability
alteration of sandstones, using the commercial surfactant polysorbate
80 (P80), are presented. The experimental evaluation started from
a virgin sandstone core (water-wet); damage was then induced to modify
the wettability of the rock from water-wet to oil-wet, with the purpose
of evaluating the surfactant’s ability to restore the wettability
of the core to the water phase. The contact angles of water and n-decane droplets were used to evaluate the wettability
alteration of the surface. The theoretical evaluation was made using
molecular dynamics to determine the configuration of the surfactant
adsorbed on the surface and to calculate the surfactant–liquid
interaction energy. Experimental results showed that a concentration
of 100 ppm P80 in the impregnation solution generated the greatest
contact angle for n-decane droplets and a small contact
angle for water droplets using the least amount of surfactant, restoring
the water-wet state of the solid and generating a lipophobic surface.
The molecular dynamics results showed that adsorption of the surfactant
on the surface is associated mainly with interactions between the
chains of the surfactant that contain the ester group and the surface,
whereas the chains containing ethylene oxides are exposed toward the
liquid phase. By evaluating the interaction energy between the P80
coating and the liquid phases, it was established that the chains
containing the ethylene oxides were key to restoring the water-wet
state of the surface since they exerted an attractive interaction
over water and a slightly repulsive interaction over n-decane, generating the lipophobic surface. The molecular model developed
in this work allows the performance of predictive calculations of
the contact angle of liquid droplets, with deviations, in most cases,
of less than 5% compared to the experimental value.