A Modified Contact Angle Measurement Process to Suppress Oil Drop Spreading and Improve Precision

Static contact angle measurement is a widely applied method for wettability assessment. Despite its convenience, it suffers from errors induced by contact angle hysteresis, material heterogeneity, and other factors. This paper discusses the oil drop spreading phenomenon that was frequently observed during contact angle measurements. Experimental tests showed that this phenomenon is closely related to surfactants in the surrounding phase, the remaining oil on the rock surface, and oil inside the surrounding phase. A modified contact angle measurement process was proposed. In the modified method, deionized water was used as the surrounding phase, and a rock surface cleaning step was added. Subsequent measurements showed a very low chance of oil drop spreading and improved precision. A further comparison study showed that, when the surrounding phase was deionized water, the measured contact angle values tended to be closer to intermediate-wet conditions compared to the values measured in clean surfactant solutions. This difference became more significant when the surface was strongly water-wet or strongly oil-wet. As a result, the developed process has two prerequisites: that the in-situ contact angle values inside surfactant solutions are not required, and that the wettability alteration induced by the surfactant solution is irreversible.