Investigation on the synergistic effect of pH and pyridinium-based ionic liquid on the wettability alteration of dolomite rock and IFT of formation brine/alkaline crude oil at the presence and absence of SiO2 nanoparticles
Authors: Pazhoohan Mehrdad , Hezave Ali Zeinolabedini 
Published: August 2023

Investigation on the hybrid enhanced oil recovery solutions and methods is gaining attention during the last decade since they can activate multiple mechanisms such as viscosity reduction, interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, and wettability alteration. So, the current work is concentrated on the application of 1-octyl-3-methyl pyridinium chloride ([C8py][Cl]) and 1-dodecyl-3-methyl pyridinium chloride ([C12py][Cl]) as novel surfactants in the absence and presence of SiO2 nanoparticles (SiO2-NPs) for the first time for possible IFT reduction and rock wettability change (contact angle (CA) measurement). In this way, the concentration of ionic liquids (ILs) and SiO2-NPs ranged between 0–2000 ppm and 0–1000 ppm, respectively, to see the influence of these chemicals on the wettability change and IFT reduction. The point is that the higher concentrations of these chemicals were not examined since using higher concentrations makes it expensive and uneconomic for field-scale applications. The obtained results revealed that as the pH increases from 3 to 11 in the absence of different chemicals (formation brine/basic crude oil), the IFT experiences an increase from 20.3 to 31.2 mN/m, while the situation for CA is more complicated. In detail, the results revealed that increasing the pH in the range of 3–11 leads to an increase in the CA from 103.2° to 121.3° (increasing pH from 3 to 7) while a further increase in the pH leads to a reduction in CA value from 121.3° to 118.3°. Moreover, the results revealed that increasing the concentration of [C8py][Cl] from 0 to 2000 ppm led to a reduction in IFT value from 20.3 to 0.95 mN/m for pH of 3, from 27.3 to 2.2 mN/m for pH of 7 and from 31.2 to 5.4 mN/m for pH of 11. Besides, the measurements for [C12py][Cl] revealed that increasing the concentration from 0 to 2000 ppm leads to IFT reduction from 20.3 to 0.74 mN/m for pH of 3, from 27.3 to 0.9 for pH of 7, and from 31.2 to 1.4 mN/m for pH of 11. The results demonstrated a higher influence of [C12py][Cl] on the IFT reduction compared with the [C8py][Cl] due to the longer alkyl chain length of [C12py][Cl] which means more detergency power. Furthermore, the effects of these two ILs are examined on the wettability change which showed that both of the examined ILs are capable to manipulate the wettability of the rock surface toward water-wet conditions (53.3°) from oil-wet conditions (121.3°). Also, the influence of SiO2-NPs in the range of 0–1000 ppm is investigated on the IFT reduction and wettability change while the concentration of ILs is held constant at 2000 ppm since the concentration of 2000 ppm leading to the lowest CA and IFT values for both examined ILs. The obtained results reveal that not only the presence of SiO2-NPs with a maximum concentration of 1000 ppm leads to a reducing trend on the IFT in particular for the pH of 11 regardless of the used IL but also it changes the surface wettability to strongly water-wet condition with minimum CA value of 28.5°. In the last stage, the efficiency of the optimum chemical formulations was examined through core flooding experiments using conventional core flooding procedure and the core flooding experiments concomitant with the soaking time (30 days). The experiments revealed that the chemical formulation under a pH of 3 leads to the highest oil recovery factors while the lowest oil recovery factors are obtained under a pH of 11. Besides, the core flooding experiments followed by soaking reveal the ultimate oil recovery of 10.1 and 13.3% based on the original oil in place (OOIP) due to better activation of the wettability change mechanism which was 46% higher than the situation no soaking was performed. The findings of this study can help for a better understanding of the feasibility and applicability of using new hybrid surfactant-NPs-based EOR methods to activate wettability alteration and IFT reduction, especially with a main focus on one specific fraction of crude oil (resin fraction) instead of crude oil.