Gravity drainage in porous media: the effect of wetting

In order to relate the wetting properties at the pore scale to the macroscale hydrodynamics, a series of benchmark experiments on the effect of the wetting on flow in porous media were performed. Gravity drainage of hexane (oil) in a model porous medium consisting of water-wet sand was studied using γ-ray densitometry and weight measurements. The advantage of our system is that we know and control the wetting properties perfectly: we can tune the wetting properties by changing the salinity of the water. This allows us to perform porous medium flow experiments for the different wetting states without changing the transport properties (viscosity and density) of the oil. Drainage is found to be more efficient and, consequently, oil recovery more important for partial wetting.