@article{Tong2024, 
author = {Chun-Yu Tong and Yong-Fei Yang and Qi Zhang and Gloire Imani and Lei Zhang and Hai Sun and Jun-Jie Zhong and Kai Zhang and Jun Yao},
title = {Pore-scale fluid distribution and remaining oil during tertiary low-salinity waterflooding in a carbonate},
year = {2024},
journal = {Petroleum Science},
volume = {21},
number = {6},
pages = {4130-4140},
keywords = {Tertiary low-salinity waterflooding, Micro-CT, Wettability alteration, Digital core, Remaining oil},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.1016/j.petsci.2024.09.008},
doi = {10.1016/j.petsci.2024.09.008},
abstract = {Low-salinity waterflooding, as a promising enhanced oil recovery method, has exhibited exciting results in various experiments conducted at different scales. For carbonate rock, pore-scale understanding of the fluid distribution and remaining oil after low-salinity waterflooding is essential, especially the geometry and topology analysis of oil clusters. We performed the tertiary low-salinity waterflooding and employed X-ray micro-CT to probe the pore-scale displacement mechanism, fluid configuration, oil recovery, and remaining oil distribution. We found that the core becomes less oil-wet after low-salinity waterflooding. Furthermore, we analyzed the oil-rock and oil-brine interfacial areas to further support the wettability alteration. By comparing images after high-salinity waterflooding and low-salinity waterflooding, it is proven that wettability alteration has a significant impact on the behavior of the two-phase flow. Our research demonstrates that low-salinity waterflooding is an effective tertiary enhanced oil recovery technology in carbonate, which changes the wettability of rock and results in less film and singlet oil.}
}