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It has been already well established that adjusting the salinity of displacing fluid critically affects the oil recovery efficiency during secondary and tertiary oil recovery processes. In this investigation, systematic experiments are designed and conducted to find the effects of both low and high salinity water on the surface properties of crude oil–brine/solid surfaces. In this respect, the effects of the major salts including NaCl, CaCl 2, and MgCl 2 are tested in the concentration range of 0–45 000 ppm on fluid/solid and fluid/fluid interactions for a crude oil/water/rock system. Two main surface properties including contact angle and interfacial tension (IFT) are measured using a pendant drop apparatus. The obtained results demonstrate the critical effects of heavy oil components on the interfacial properties. High film stability in some cases resulted in small contact angle changes, mostly in the range of the strongly water wet condition, for different brine salinity.
Lashkarbolooki et al. (Tue,) studied this question.