Fundamental Understanding of Oil Adhesion Under Reservoir Conditions (FOilCon).

全球对石油的需求不断增长，常规来源的可用性不断减少，可持续性标准不断提高，这意味着提高石油采收率（EOR）操作越来越多地被部署以延长油藏寿命。对于成熟的UKCS油田尤其如此，BP已投资1.2亿英镑部署低盐度水EOR（Claire Ridge Field），以在油田寿命期间实现额外的4200万桶石油。尽管低矿化度EOR的使用越来越多，但其地球化学基础仍然没有得到很好的理解。油的润湿性与其粘附在岩石表面的“能力”有关，这主要是通过极性油组分与不同矿物/颗粒表面的相互作用而发生的。因此，了解EOR如何工作需要直接了解控制这些相互作用的机制。迄今为止，关于这一专题的大多数研究都是间接性质的，即一种解决办法在核心样本上流动，并衡量不同的产出。最近，化学力显微镜（CFM）已被用于直接测量有机官能团（代表油分子）和矿物表面之间的粘附力，但这些测量仅在室温和压力下进行，换句话说，远远超出了真实的油藏中遇到的条件。该提案旨在通过设计，建造和部署下一代水热原子力显微镜（HAFM）来缓解这种情况。 原子力显微镜（AFM）已被证明是在纳米尺度上研究各种现象的关键技术。这是由于其极高的垂直（低于1纳米）和横向（5-10纳米）分辨率以及在溶液中进行研究的能力。因此，原子力显微镜可以提供定量的动力学数据在尺度上的基元反应，也定性信息的众多过程（溶解，沉淀等）。化学力显微镜是传统AFM的衍生物，其中尖端用特定官能团官能化，然后接近表面，允许测量相互作用力，包括粘附力。然而，目前，热液条件超出了商业系统的范围，只有少数定制系统可以达到130 ℃的温度。这项资助的主要目标是开发下一代水热AFM。该系统的主要特点是：1）能够达到180 ℃和20大气压。2)XY平移台的加入，打开了研究亚毫米晶体的大门。3)最先进的流体输送系统和定制的流体池，可在任何所需的pH值范围内进行实验。一旦建成，HAFM将被部署用于通过CFM研究纳米级的矿物-石油相互作用。油-矿物表面相互作用的研究将使用不同的功能化尖端进行，代表各种官能团（如原油中存在的），并将在不同盐度的溶液下进行，目的是了解低盐度对降低油表面粘附的影响。建议的仪器的应用可以在NERC的地球材料的物理和化学，沉积物和沉积过程的战略研究领域具有广泛的影响。此外，新的HAFM将在NERC的职权范围之外以及在工业中有一系列应用。

Growing global demand for oil, diminishing availability of conventional sources and increased sustainability criteria mean enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations are increasingly deployed to extend reservoir life. This is especially true for mature UKCS fields, and BP has invested £120 million to deploy low salinity water EOR (Claire Ridge Field) to realise an additional 42M barrels of oil over the field life. Despite its increasing use, the geochemical basis of low salinity EOR is still not well understood. Oil wettability is linked to its "ability" to adhere to rock surfaces, which mainly occurs by the interaction of polar oil components with different mineral/grain surfaces. Therefore, understanding how EOR works requires a direct knowledge of the mechanisms controlling these interactions. To date most studies on the topic have been of an indirect nature, where a solution is flown over a core sample and different outputs are measured. More recently, chemical force microscopy (CFM) has been deployed to directly measure the adhesion between organic functional groups (representative of oil molecules) and mineral surfaces, but these measurements have been exclusively done at room temperature and pressure, in other words, well outside the conditions encountered in real reservoirs. This proposal seeks to alleviate this situation by designing, building and deploying a next-generation hydrothermal atomic force microscope (HAFM). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has proved to be a key technique in studying a wide variety of phenomena at the nanoscale. This is due to its extremely high vertical (below 1 Å) and lateral (5-10 nm) resolution and its ability to perform studies in solution. Therefore, the AFM can provide quantitative kinetic data at the scale of elementary reactions and also qualitative information on multitude of processes (dissolution, precipitation, etc). Chemical force microscopy is a derivative of conventional AFM, where the tip is functionalised with a specific functional group and then it's approached to a surface, allowing for the measurements of interaction forces, including adhesion. Currently, however, hydrothermal conditions are beyond the range of commercial systems and only a handful of custom systems can reach temperatures of 130 C. The main goal of this grant is to develop a next-generation hydrothermal AFM. The main characteristics of this system will be: 1) Ability to reach 180 C and 20 atm. 2) The addition of XY translation stage, opening the door to study sub-mm crystals. 3) State-of-the-art fluid delivery system and custom-made fluid cell to perform experiments at any pH range desired. Once built, the HAFM will be deployed to study mineral-oil interactions at the nanoscale by means of CFM. Investigations in oil-mineral surface interactions will be carried out with different functionalised tips, representing a variety of functional groups (as present in crude oil), and will be carried out under solutions of different salinities with the goal of understanding the low salinity effect on reducing oil-surface adhesion. The application of the proposed instrument can have wide ranging implications in the NERC's strategic research areas of Physics and Chemistry of Earth Materials, and Sediments and sedimentary processes. In addition, the new HAFM, will have a range of applications outside the NERC's remit as well as in industry.