Oritom Hezekiah-Braye
The ongoing decline in global oil production has necessitated the use of enhanced oil recovery with natural materials to reduce environmental impacts associated with synthetic materials, improve wettability, and achieve a more water-wet process, thereby enhancing oil recovery and mitigating further environmental degradation. Research on the use of natural materials in the oil and gas industry has received global acceptance as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to maintain a safer environment. Enhanced oil recovery using synthetic chemicals is costly and poses environmental challenges, prompting interest in locally sourced bio-based alternatives. This research aims to improve oil recovery by altering wettability using readily available, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective materials. This study investigates the potential to alter the wettability of mangrove wood ash, caladium bicolor starch, and sea moss for sandstone reservoirs using the Amott wettability method, imbibition, and X-ray fluorescence analysis of the ionic composition of natural materials. Results show that mangrove wood ash had the highest wettability alteration efficiency, 0.786, followed by sea moss with a wettability index of 0.710, and caladium bicolor with the lowest index of 0.637. Mangrove wood ash, with 87.37 wt% CaO, drives wettability change through strong alkalinity, saponification, and ion exchange. Sea moss undergoes alteration via sulfated polysaccharide adsorption, yielding 4.12 wt% SO3. Caladium bicolor primarily contributes to mobility control by increasing viscosity, with only a weak alteration in wettability due to the adsorption of neutral hydroxyl groups. Key words: Contact angle, enhanced oil recovery, imbibition, natural materials, wettability alteration.