Sharif Digital Repository

The slow kinetics of wettability alteration toward a more water-wetting state by low-salinity waterflooding (LSWF) in oil-brine-rock (OBR) systems is conjectured to be pertinent to the electrokinetic phenomena in the thin brine film. We hypothesize that the nanoscale physicochemical heterogeneities such as surface roughness and surface charge heterogeneity at the rock/brine interface control further the dynamics of electrodiffusion and electrostatic disjoining pressure (Πel), thus the time-scale and the magnitude of the low salinity effect (LSE). In this regard, film-scale computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed. The coupled Poisson-Nernst-Planck (PNP) equations were... 

This investigation is devoted to the influences of non-uniform wall characteristics on the surface adsorption-desorption rates in an electrokinetic microarray. Utilizing already explored electroosmotic and electrophoretic velocities, the species transport equations are solved by a finite-volume-based numerical approach. Uniform, sinusoidal, and pulse-like distributions of the zeta potential are considered in the analysis. The developed model is validated by comparing the results with those of two analytical solutions that are derived for limiting conditions. The results reveal that, in some cases, the surface charge heterogeneity can reduce the saturation time by more than 60%. The efficacy...