Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227 236

www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

Effect of surfactants on wettability of near-wellbore regions of

gas reservoirs
B. Adibhatla a , K.K. Mohanty a,, P. Berger b , C. Lee b
a

Chemical Engineering, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun Road, Houston, TX 77204-4004, United States
b
Oil Chem Technologies, United States
Received 21 June 2004; accepted 7 March 2006

Abstract
The flow of gas in tight, low-pressure gas wells can be partially blocked by the water saturation build-up near the hydraulic
fracture face if the drawdown pressure does not exceed the capillary pressure. To increase the productivity, the water saturation may
be reduced by alteration of the near-wellbore wettability from water-wet conditions to intermediate-wet conditions. Many
surfactants have been identified which change the wettability of carbonate and sandstone rocks from water-wet to intermediate-wet
in waterairrock systems. Among fluorosilanes, as the number of fluoro groups increases, rocks become less water-wet. One day
of aging period and 1 wt.% concentration appear to be sufficient for altering wettability. Interaction with field brine plays a crucial
role in selection of appropriate surfactants. The increase in gas relative permeability due to the change in wettability is a function of
the pressure gradient.
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Wettability; Contact angle; Gas reservoir; Surfactant

1. Introduction
Many gas reservoirs have low permeability. Therefore, they are hydraulically fractured. Brine (with
viscosifiers) has been used traditionally as the carrier
fluid for proppants in hydraulic fracturing treatments
because of its cost and safety compared to hydrocarbonbased fluids. During fracturing, some of this carrier fluid
leaks into the reservoir. Typical gas reservoirs are waterwet and a part of the leak-off brine is retained near the
fracture face because of the positive capillary pressure in
water-wet porous media. If the drawdown pressure is
higher than the capillary pressure, the water retention is
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 713 743 4331; fax: +1 713 743
4331.
E-mail address: Mohanty@uh.edu (K.K. Mohanty).
0920-4105/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2006.03.026

small (Van Poolen, 1957; Abrams and Vinegar, 1985).

Otherwise, this retained brine can block the flow of gas
and impair productivity. If the reservoir produces small
amount of water, water can also build up near the
fracture face. The impact of water retention near the
fracture face on gas production has been studied earlier
(Tannich, 1975; Holditch, 1979).
In a gas well, the capillary pressure (Pc) is the
pressure jump across the watergas menisci. The
YoungLaplace equation gives the relationship between
wategas interfacial tension (), contact angle () and
mean radius (rm) of curvature of the interface as follows:
2gcosh
:
1
Pc
rm
If the contact angle can be increased, then the capillary
pressure can be decreased and hence the brine saturation

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B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of water saturation and capillary end effect near a fracture face (after Mahadevan and Sharma, 2003).

buildup near the fracture face can be lowered. An earlier

study (Penny et al., 1983) discussed the effects of
capillary pressure, wettability, pore radius and interfacial tension in gas reservoirs. It was concluded that the
best way of productivity recovery would be by
wettability alteration. Water buildup has also been
reduced (in a laboratory study) through evaporation by
adding volatile solvents like methanol (Mahadevan and
Sharma, 2003). In this study, as well, it was found that
wettability change improves recovery of the load water.
Though methanol leads to load water recovery faster, it
cannot mitigate the water accumulation near the fracture
due to the mobile water from the reservoir. An effective
way to reduce the water saturation near the fracture face
or wellbore would be to change the wettability and
hence reduce the water saturation near the fracture face
or wellbore. Fig. 1 depicts the plausible saturation
profile near the wellbore before the treatment with
surfactants.
Importance of wettability alteration has been long
recognized by Buckley and Leverett (1942). Many
researchers (Willhite, 1986) have studied the effect of

oilwater wettability on capillary pressure, relative

permeability, residual phase saturation, displacement
efficiency, etc. The oilwater wettability of a rock
depends on rock mineralogy, oil and brine compositions
(Yan et al., 1997). The zeta potential of minerals and oil
affect the electrostatic interaction (Hirasaki, 1991). The
zeta potentials depend on the brine pH. Oil asphaltene
and resin compositions control its interfacial activity.
The acid and base numbers also influence the wettability
(Buckley, 2001). Core wettability is traditionally
measured by Amott or USBM wettability index.
Morrow and Mason (2001) have reviewed the relation
between the spontaneous imbibition of brine and core
wettability. Most of the research on wettability deals
with oilwater systems.
Penny et al. (1983) have studied gaswaterrock
systems. Although the wettability alteration was a side
effect of fracturing, it was observed that surfactant based
fracturing fluid increased the productivity, sometimes
23 times more than the conventionally fractured wells.
Li and Firoozabadi (2000) and Tang and Firoozabadi
(2002) have used a 3M-manufactured surfactant FC-722

Table 1
Surfactants used in the study
Symbol

Formula

Solvent

A
B
C
D
E
OSA
DTAB
Forafac
FluoroPel
WSA

3-(Heptafluoroisopropoxy)proplytriethoxysilane
1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluourooctylmethyldimethoxysilane
1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluourooctyltriethoxysilane
1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluourodecyltriethoxysilane
1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluourododecyltriethoxysilane
Oil-soluble amine
Dodecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide
Fluorinated surfactant
Fluorinated polymer
Water-soluble amine

Ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol/water
Water
Water
Fluorinated solvent
Water

B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

Table 2
Field brine composition

229

Table 3
Contact angle on calcite surface after 1-day aging and 6-day aging

Salt

Mol. wt.

mM/L

g/L

CaCl22H2O
MgCl22H2O
KCl
NaCl
Fe(NH4)2(SO4)26H2O
Na2SO4

147.05
203.33
74.57
58.45
392.16
142.05

20.01
9.99
0
99.49
0.018
1.67

2.94
2.03
0
5.81
0.007
0.24

and FC-759 in their wettability alteration for application

in gas-condensate reservoirs. They found that application of these chemicals resulted in intermediate-wet
conditions, which led to considerable changes in
imbibition rates and gas relative permeability. Currently,
3M does not produce these chemicals anymore for
environmental reasons.
The goal of this work is to find cost-effective
surfactants to alter gas well wettability from water-wet
to intermediate-wet. We have studied the change in
wettability caused by several surface-active agents. Our
methodology is described in the next section. The results
are discussed in the following section. The last section
summarizes our observations.
2. Experimental procedure
The laboratory studies were conducted in two scales.
First, experiments were done at a mineral slab-scale,
where carbonate surfaces (calcite and marble) and silica
surfaces (mica and silica wafer) were treated with
surfactant solutions to study their effect on wettability.
Second, experiments were done at a core-scale (with
limestone cores) to study the effect of surfactants on
relative permeability and spontaneous imbibition.

Surfactant

A
B
C
D
E
FluoroPel

Contact angle ()
Before
treatment

After treatment
(1-day aging)

33.7
32.6
34.0
32.7
33.2
33.2

64.8
50.6
74.2
111.0
114.4
118.0

After treatment
(6-day aging)
69.0
49.5
73.0
110.0
115.0

2.1. Fluids used

The surfactants used for this study are listed in
Table 1. Five fluorosilanes were studied; they have
been named A through E. Two amines (from Oil
Chem. Technologies) called OSA (oil-soluble amine)
and WSA (water-soluble amine) were tested. A
cationic surfactant (DTAB), a fluorinated surfactant
(Forafac), and a fluorinated polymer (FluoroPel) were
also tested. The fluorosilanes and OSA are insoluble in
water and their solution is made in ethanol. A field
brine of composition listed in Table 2 is used in some
tests. A synthetic brine of 0.1 N NaCl prepared in
distilled water is used as the liquid phase in most of
the contact angle measurements. The specific gravity
of the brine was 1.01. The experiments were
conducted at ambient temperature conditions which
varied from 2224 C. Air was used as the gas phase
and the plates were dried using dry air.
2.2. Wettability measurements
The effect of surfactant solution on wettability was
determined by contact angle measurements. A computer-aided digital goniometer is used for determination of
the advancing and the equilibrium contact angles on
plain surfaces. The following procedure is used for the
contact angle determination.
Table 4
Contact angle on mica surface after 1-day aging and different
concentrations
Surfactant

Fig. 2. Contact angle change with time; equilibrium contact angle is

approached in a few minutes.

A
B
C
D
E

Contact angle ()
Before
treatment

After treatment
(4 wt.% ethanol)

After treatment
(1 wt.% ethanol)

17.0
16.2
16.4
17.2
16.2

65.5
67.7
94.0
100.0
115.0

65.0
120.0
112.0

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B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

Fig. 3. Possible mechanism of wettability alteration for mica and calcite surfaces.

Fig. 4. Surfaces before treatment with surfactants (a) calcite and (b) mica.

Carbonate surfaces of calcite and marble were made

smooth by grinding the slabs on a diamond plate. This
procedure also exposed an uncontaminated layer of
mineral at the surface. The mineral slabs were
equilibrated with synthetic brine (0.1 N NaCl brine)
for a period of 1 day, and then dried before measuring
the initial contact angle between untreated surfaces,
water, and air. For sandstone samples, a fresh mica
surface (nanometer smooth) was used as the model
surface and initial contact angle was measured following aging in synthetic brine. Mica is used because it
behaved similar to silicon wafers in our initial experiments and freshly cleaved mica is molecularly smooth.

After measuring the initial contact angle, the slabs

were immersed in a surfactant solution (of chosen
concentration) for a period of 1 day. The solvents for the
surfactant solutions are listed in Table 1. They were
removed from the solution and air-dried. The contact
angle between the treated surface, water, and air was
measured again.
The slabs were immersed back in the surfactant
solution to test for additional deposition and effect of
aging. The treated plates were placed in a synthetic brine
and a field brine to study the stability of the deposited
layer in harsh conditions. Fresh mineral surfaces were
also treated with surfactant solutions with 1:1 ratio of

Fig. 5. Contact angle on calcite surface after treatment with 4 wt.% (a) D and (b) E.

B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

231

Fig. 6. Contact angle on mica surface after treatment with 4 wt.% surfactants (a) D and (b) E.

Fig. 7. Contact angle on calcite surface after treatment with 1 wt.% surfactant E (a) after 1-day and (b) after 6-day aging.

field brine and ethanol to see the effect of field brine on

contact angle.
2.3. Imbibition studies
From studies at the slab-scale, two good surfactants,
surfactant D and FloroPel, were chosen for further
investigation on a larger scale. These surfactants were
used to study the change in wettability on a core scale.
The following procedure was used to study the impact
of wettability alteration in a core scale.
The carbonate cores were vacuum dried and then
fully saturated with the synthetic brine (0.1 N NaCl).
The brine permeability was measured. The cores were
then flushed with humidified N2 gas to a residual brine
saturation at a pressure gradient of 1014 psi/ft. The gas
permeability at this residual saturation was measured.
The cores were then flooded from the opposite end
with 6 PV of ethanol to remove any residual brine. The
core was then flooded for 3 PV with surfactant solutions
and aged at room temperature for a period of 24 h. The
aged core was then again flooded with 6 PV of ethanol
followed by 6 PV of synthetic brine to remove nonadsorbed surfactants and ethanol, respectively. The core
was then flooded with humidified N2 gas to a residual
brine saturation at a pressure gradient of 1014 psi/ft.
The core was then flooded with dry N2 gas at a high
pressure gradient of 100 psi/ft. It was then taken out of

the core holder and immersed in brine. The spontaneous

imbibition of brine was monitored. A reference core was
also used to study brine imbibition without surfactant
treatment. After the spontaneous imbibition the cores
were flooded again with brine under vacuum to 100%
brine saturation. They were then gas-flooded with
humidified N2 to residual brine saturation at a pressure
gradient of 1014 psi/ft to obtain the gas permeability at
the residual saturation.
3. Results and discussion
In all cases of contact angle measurement, a high
initial contact angle was observed which reduced to a
smaller equilibrium contact angle in a few minutes. Fig.
2 shows a typical contact angle change with time (for
Table 5
Stability of adsorbed film in field brine calcite surface and effect of
concentration of surfactants
Surfactant

A
B
C
D
E

Contact angle ()
6-Day aging
(4 wt.% ethanol)

Additional 1 week
in field brine

1 wt.% in
ethanol

69.0
49.5
73.0
110
115

72.5
111.2
114.6

78.0
112.8
112.0

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B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

Table 6
Effect of preparation of surfactant in 1:3 ethanol/field brine at 1 wt.%
Surfactant

C
D
E

Contact angle (calcite)

Contact angle (mica)

In ethanol

In ethanol +
field brine

In ethanol

In ethanol +
field brine

78.0
112.8
112.0

26.6
27.2
26

65.0
120.0
112.0

18.0
18.4
16.7

surfactant B) before and after the surfactant treatment.

All the measurements and the effectiveness of surfactants are reported here with respect to the final
equilibrium contact angle.
The change in contact angle on the calcite surface
due to treatment with fluorosilane surfactants and
FluoroPel is shown in Table 3. The contact angle
modification for the mica surface is shown in Table 4.
FluoroPel did not change the contact angle on mica. The
surfactant concentration was 4 wt.% in the treatments
used in these experiments. The surfactants AE are
methoxy or ethoxy silanes. The mechanism for
wettability alteration for mica samples could be by
bonding of the silane groups to the (Si-OH) group in
silica/mica surfaces, with the fluorine backbone exposed
out of the surface; the fluorine backbone provides the
water repellency to the surface. The mechanism of
wettability alteration in calcite is not clearly understood.
According to Somasundaran and Agar (1967), the
calcite surface at neutral pH has an excess of the
positive Ca2+, CaHCO3+, and CaOH+ species. The silane
groups may interact with the Ca-OH+ group in a manner
similar to the Si-OH group in silica. This may be the
reason for wettability alteration on calcite surface,
though more studies on this matter should be conducted
to understand the mechanism of wettability alteration.
The possible mechanism is illustrated in Fig. 3.
Fig. 4 shows the brine drops on untreated calcite and
mica; both these surfaces are water-wet. Fig. 5 shows
the brine drops on calcite treated with surfactants D and

E. Fig. 6 shows the brine drops on mica treated with

surfactants D and E. It can be seen (from Tables 3, 4 and
Figs. 5, 6) that the surfactants C, D and E make both the
mica and the calcite surfaces intermediate-wet. As the
number of fluoro groups increases in the surfactant, the
extent of water repellency increases. The accuracy of
measurement is about 1, as shown by the second
column (before treatment) in Tables 3 and 4.
Table 3 also shows the effect of aging time on contact
angles on treated calcite. Fig. 7 shows the shapes of
water drops. There is little difference between 1-day
aging and 6-day aging contact angles. 1-day aging
period is sufficient for the fluorosilane molecules to
bond to the surface, rendering it intermediate-wet. The
weight of the slabs was also monitored and there was no
change in the weight between 1-day and 6-day aging.
This suggests no further adsorption of surfactant. A
sample treated with a 4 wt.% surfactant C in ethanol was
tested for contact angle after 1 yr, and the contact angle
was still in the intermediate-wet region. The treatment
was hydrolytically stable for at least a period of 1 yr.
Samples treated with surfactants D and E at the same
concentration formed a gel after nearly 7 months,
probably due to hydrolysis of silanol bonds.
The stability of the adsorbed fluorosilane surfactants
in field brine was tested by immersing the slabs in the
field brine for a week after the 6-day aging in surfactant
solution. The contact angles after soaking in field brine
is not very different from those before, as shown in
Table 5. It can be concluded that once the surfactant has
been deposited, it is stable in the field brine conditions
for a week.
The effect of surfactant concentration on the
wettability alteration was studied for fluorosilanes C,
D, and E (those successful in making surfaces
intermediate-wet). The contact angles for 1 wt.%
surfactant are compared with those for 4 wt.% in
Table 4 for mica and in Table 5 for calcite slabs. It can be
seen that a 1 wt.% solution is as effective in wettability
alteration as 4 wt.% for surfactants D and E.

Fig. 8. Contact angle on calcite surface after treatment with surfactant using field brine. (a) Surfactant E, and (b) surfactant D.

B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

Table 7
OSA surfactant contact angle on calcite with number of washes
Number of washes

Contact angle ()

0
5
10
20
30

32.0
63.0
82.0
99.0
108.0

Table 6 gives the contact angle for the fluorosilanes

prepared in a 25 wt.% ethanol in field brine solution to
study the effect of field brine during wettability
alteration. It was observed that surfactant E formed a
gel in these conditions, and surfactants C and D formed
suspensions. The calcite and mica plates were dipped in
these solutions and left for aging for a period of 1 day.
Fig. 8 shows water drops on the calcite slabs treated with
surfactants E and D in the presence of field brine. Gel
formation sequesters most of the surfactant E, leaving
little surfactant to change wettability, as shown in Fig.
8a. In case of surfactant D, a white precipitate formed
and covered a part of the mineral surface. Fig. 8b shows
the contact angle at a particular location where there was
a thin layer of white precipitate; the contact angle was
120. But in regions without the precipitate, the contact
angle was found to be unaltered (27.2). The precipitate
forms from the hydrolysis of silane in water, which are
hydrophobic in nature. These precipitates are not

233

desirable because they can plug the porous medium

during the treatment.
Little is known on the hydrolytic stability of silane
surfactants in aqueous solutions or the properties of the
degraded products (Jaeger and Ward, 1982). Grning
and Koerner (1989) have shown that the hydrolysis of
trisiloxanes proceeds very slowly in the pH range of 7
9. Retter et al. (1998) found that for siloxane alkyl
ammonium bromides, hydrolysis decreases with increase in the chain length and increases with increased
branching. They also found that the products of
hydrolysis catalyze the process. More thorough study
of the hydrolytic stability of these surfactants is needed
for long-term field applications.
Table 7 shows contact angles for 0.05 wt.% OSA
surfactant treated calcite surface. The contact angle was
32 after the treatment (Fig. 9a). The surface was
washed with water several times and the contact angle
was measured after each wash. It can be seen in Table 7
that the contact angle increases with each wash and the
surface becomes intermediate-wet (Fig. 9b). A possible
mechanism for the above behavior is sketched in Fig.
10. Anionic surfactants can adsorb on calcite surfaces as
shown in Fig. 10a, as described by Somasundaran and
Krishnakumar (1997). The 0.05 wt.% OSA used in this
study is 10 times its CMC value. Hence, a bilayer can
form. The contact angle of a water drop on a bilayer is
small (Fig. 10b) because the ionic groups are exposed. If

Fig. 9. OSA surfactant aged calcite plate. (a) Initial contact angle and the equilibrium contact angle (drop spreads in <10 s). (b) Contact angles after 10
washes, initial angle and the equilibrium angle after 2 min.

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B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

Fig. 10. Possible mechanisms for intermediate-wet nature of surface after water washing for surfactant OSA. (a) The surfactant arrangement as bilayer
after treatment and air drying, (b) water drop on bilayer, diffusion of surfactants into water droplet because of weak chainchain interactions, (c)
structure of surface after many washes, and the contact angle in the presence of a strongly bound monolayer.

the chainchain interactions are not strong, then

repeated washes remove the second layer of the
surfactants. The bilayer becomes monolayer and
hydrocarbon chains are exposed on the monolayer,
which make the surface hydrophobic (Fig. 10c).
OSA surfactant does not change the wettability of
mica. WSA, DTAB and Forafac change the wettability
of mica, but not of calcite. Presumably, these surfactants
are cationic and adsorb on mica. Table 8 shows the
wettability alteration on mica surface.
Table 9 gives the physical properties of the carbonate
cores used for imbibition studies. It also gives the values
of relative permeability of gas at residual brine
saturation before and after treatment along with the
saturations. It can be seen that in the case of FluoroPel,
the residual brine saturation was altered considerably
(25%) and the gas relative permeability increased
almost 160 times after the treatment. A drop of brine
Table 8
Effect of other surfactants on wettability alteration on mica plate
Surfactant

WSA
DTAB
Forafac

Contact angle ()
Before treatment

After treatment

17.0
16.2
16.4

90.0
63.0
63.0

was place on top of the core after treatment with

FluoroPel and it was found not to imbibe into the core,
and give a surface contact angle of about 113,
indicating a change in wettability of the surface. In the
case of surfactant D, the residual brine saturation
decreased by 10% and the gas relative permeability
increased by a factor of 30. These are significant, but
lower than that of FluoroPel. It was noticed that the
FloroPel-treated core was intermediate-wet on both flat
sides, but the surfactant D-treated core was intermediate-wet only on the surfactant injected flat side. There is
Table 9
Properties of the carbonate cores used for spontaneous imbibition
Core

Surfactant
Permeability k (md)
Length (cm)
Diameter (cm)
Porosity
Residual brine saturation before
treatment (%)
Gas permeability at residual
saturation (md)
Residual brine saturation after
treatment (%)
Gas permeability at residual
saturation (md)

None
120
14.9
3.82
22.5
65

FluoroPel
117
14.5
3.82
22.2
67.5

D
119
15.2
3.82
22.6
65

0.21

0.13

0.25

42.5

56.25

20.5

7.97

B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

Fig. 11. Spontaneous imbibition in carbonate cores at room

temperature for case of untreated core, core treated with surfactant D
and core treated with FloroPel, Swi = 0%, and k = 120 md.

a difference in the method of wettability alteration

between the slab-scale and the core-scale experiments.
In slab experiments, the slab was dried after the
treatment. Whereas in the case of core experiments the
cores were all flushed with ethanol and brine after the
treatment of the surface. The core flushing sequence can
be improved in the future to achieve more uniform
wettability alteration.
Fig. 11 shows the amount of brine imbibed
spontaneously as a function of time. The brine
imbibition was 67.5% OGIP (original gas in place) in
about 20 h for the untreated core. For the core treated
with surfactant D, the brine imbibition was about 40%
OGIP. For the core treated with FloroPel, it reduced to
7.5% OGIP. FloroPel succeeded in changing the

235

wettability of the core and increasing gas permeability

at the residual brine saturation.
Two cores, one untreated and the other treated with
FluoroPel, were then used to study the gas relative
permeability at different residual water saturations. The
cores were initially 100% water saturated. Then, they
were gas flooded with humidified N2 gas at different
pressure drops. The pressure gradients used were 14 psi/
ft, 32 psi/ft, 56 psi/ft, 120 psi/ft and 200 psi/ft. At each
condition, the core was allowed to reach an equilibrium,
which was noted by no additional production of water.
The gas relative permeability was measured and the
residual water saturation was back calculated by
monitoring the production of water. The results of the
experiment are shown in Fig. 12. Residual permeability
is the effective gas permeability at the residual brine
saturation. It can be seen that for the same pressure
gradient, the treated core showed a higher gas relative
permeability than the untreated. At low pressure
gradients (e.g., 14 psi/ft), the enhancement in gas
permeability is higher than that at high pressure
gradients (e.g., 200 psi/ft). The higher residual permeability for the treated core is primarily due to the lower
residual water saturation. Water saturation is higher for
the water-wet case due to capillary end effect which
decreases with the increase in pressure gradient.
Fig. 12 also shows that the effective gas permeability
at a fixed water saturation is lower for the untreated core
compared to that for the treated core. For the untreated
core, the effective permeability would be even higher
than shown in Fig. 12 if the capillary end effect can be
removed. As the core becomes less water-wet, gas
relative permeability decreases. As a fluid becomes
wetter, it occupies relatively smaller pores leading to

Fig. 12. Residual permeability of gas for treated and untreated cores at different pressure drops across the core.

236

B. Adibhatla et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 52 (2006) 227236

lower relative permeability. It is also noted that for the

treated core, as the pressure gradient increases, the
residual water saturation decreases. For 200 psi/ft, the
5
capillary number defined as Nc DPk
rL is O(10 ). Thus
6
the capillary number varies in the range of 10 to 10 5.
Thus the residual water saturation varies in this range at
this intermediate wettability.
4. Conclusions
Many surfactants have been identified which change
the wettability of carbonate and sandstone rocks from
water-wet to intermediate-wet in waterairrock systems. Among fluorosilanes, as the number of fluoro
groups increases, the rock becomes less water-wet. One
day of aging period and 1 wt.% concentration appear to
be sufficient for altering wettability. Interaction with
field brine plays a crucial role in selection of appropriate
surfactants. Wettability alteration can reduce the brine
saturation near the hydraulic fracture faces and increase
gas productivity. The increase in gas relative permeability due to the change in wettability is a function of
the pressure gradient. More experiments need to be
performed with low permeability rocks to understand
the mechanisms, the long-term stability, and the effect of
wettability alteration at a reservoir scale.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank NPTO of the US Department of
Energy (DE-FC26-00NT15125) for providing financial
support for this project.
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