Research Theme 6: Microfluidics and field studies

Objective:
Develop new methods for determination of wettability in porous media from pore scale images. Establish experimental support for the multi-phase flow theories developed in WP1 by pore scale imaging of flow. Characterize multiphase flow for various characteristics of porous media, including pore structure and wetting states, and their relations to trapping.


Figure: Testing flooding efficiency; Oil (dark purple) trapped after water flooding (light purple) in a 2D glass micromodel. Picture courtesy: Georg J. B. Voss. Department of Geoscience and Petroleum, NTNU

Description:

Wettability has a first order effect on multi-phase flow and trapping in porous media. However, wettability in complex porous media is not well described and the protocols of wetting state measurements are too simple to be fully descriptive for two-phase flow. Measurements of the contact angle on a substrate or the wettability index in spontaneous imbibition and centrifuge experiments do not provide good predictability for description of two-phase flow in porous media.

In this work package we will develop several methods (experimental and numerical) for wettability characterization, including direct image analysis and a thermodynamic approach based on pore scale observations of changes in fluid distribution versus applied work. We propose to study phase distribution and multi-phase flow properties as a function of wettability, pore structure and fluid-solid interactions, starting from glass bead packs imaged by micro-CT and glass micro-models or lab-on-chip microfluidics. The focus will be to understand pore scale fluid-phase distribution and trapping under different wettability, pore structure and mobility conditions. The learning from the developed methods and observations will be extended to two-phase flow experiments in various natural and industrial porous media.

Deliverables:

Elucidation and determination of the role of wettability in determining the macroscopic flow properties.

New methods for wettability characterization and determination.

Experimental support for statistical mechanics description of multi-phase flow in homogeneous porous material

Investigators

Principal Investigator Research Theme 6: Carl Fredrik Berg.

Partners:
Antje van der Net, Eirik Grude Flekkøy, Alex Hansen, Signe Kjelstrup, Dick Bedeaux, Knut Jørgen Måløy, Dag Breiby

PD:
Hamidreza Erfani Gahrooei, Hamid Hosseinzade Khanamiri, Rasoul Khaledialidust, Haili Long-Sanouiller.

PhD:
Mohammad Hassan Taleghani, Reza Haghani, Mohammad Hossein Golestan, Morten Vassvik, Reidun Cecilie Grønfur Aadland, Alberto Luis Bila, Bahador Najafiazar, Salem Akarri

Selected articles:

  1. Haghani, Reza, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “A Review on Wettability Characterization from 3D Pore-Scale Images: R. Haghani, CF Berg.” Transport in Porous Media 152, no. 11, 2025.
  2. Khoeini, Mohammad Hossein, Tomislav Vukovic, Antje van der Net, Azahara Luna-Triguero, and Maja Rücker. “A novel application of inverse gas chromatography for estimating contact angles in porous media.” Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 680, 2025.
  3. Vukovic, Tomislav, Jostein Røstad, Thomas Luxbacher, Jan Vinogradov, Umer Farooq, Ole Torsæter, and Antje van der Net. “Zeta potential of glass bead packs–Streaming potential apparatus bench-marking and search for a reference value.” Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 2025.
  4. Khoeini, Mohammad Hossein, Gijs Wensink, Tomislav Vukovic, Ilja Krafft, Antje van der Net, Maja Rücker, and Azahara Luna-Triguero. “Nanoscale analysis of surface modifications on silanized glass: Wettability alteration and Long–Term stability.” Surfaces and Interfaces, 2025.
  5. Aghajanpour, Azadeh, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “Directional-and scale-dependent permeability estimations from CT images.” Geoenergy Science and Engineering 247, 2025.
  6. McClure, James E., Ming Fan, Steffen Berg, Ryan T. Armstrong, Carl Fredrik Berg, Zhe Li, and Thomas Ramstad. “Derivation of a representative elementary volume (REV) for upscaled two-phase flow in porous media.” Petrophysics-The SPWLA Journal 66, no. 01, 2025.
  7. Nandar, Phoo Pwint, Per Eirik Strand Bergmo, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “Subsurface storage for integration of intermittent energy supply during subsurface production.” Geoenergy Science and Engineering, 2025.
  8. Karimaie, Hassan, Antje van der Net, and Ole Torsæter. Core Analysis of Reservoir Rock Systems. CRC Press, 2024.
  9. Berg, Carl Fredrik, and Muhammad Sahimi. “Relation between critical exponent of the conductivity and the morphological exponents of percolation theory.” Physical Review E 110, no. 4, 2024.
  10. Haghani, Reza, Hamidreza Erfani, James E. McClure, Eirik Grude Flekkøy, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “Color-gradient-based phase-field equation for multiphase flow.” Physical Review E 109, no. 3, 2024.
  11. Erfani, Hamidreza, Reza Haghani, James McClure, Edo Boek, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “Spatial characterization of wetting in porous media using local lattice-boltzmann simulations.” Transport in Porous Media 151, no. 3, 2024.
  12. Golestan, Mohammad Hossein, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “Simulations of CO2 Dissolution in Porous Media Using the Volume-of-Fluid Method.” Energies 17, no. 3. 2024.
  13. Haghani, Reza, Hamidreza Erfani, James E. McClure, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “A note on the summation relation in phase-field equations.” Physics of Fluids 35, no. 9, 2023.
  14. Berg, Carl Fredrik, and Muhammad Sahimi. “Percolation and conductivity in evolving disordered media.” Physical Review E 108, no. 2, 2023.
  15. Vukovic, Tomislav, Jostein Røstad, Umer Farooq, Ole Torsæter, and Antje van der Net. “Systematic study of wettability alteration of glass surfaces by dichlorooctamethyltetrasiloxane Silanization─ A guide for contact angle modification.” ACS omega 8, no. 40, 2023.
  16. Yan, Lifei, Mohammad Hossein Golestan, Wenyu Zhou, S. Majid Hassanizadeh, Carl Fredrik Berg, and Amir Raoof. “Direct Evidence of Salinity Difference Effect on Water Transport in Oil: Pore–Scale Mechanisms.” Energy & Fuels 37, no. 20, 2023.
  17. McClure, James E., Ming Fan, Steffen Berg, Ryan T. Armstrong, Carl Fredrik Berg, Zhe Li, and Thomas Ramstad. “Relative permeability as a stationary process: Energy fluctuations in immiscible displacement.” Physics of Fluids 34, no. 9, 2022.
  18. Mushabe, Raymond, Ilgar Azizov, Gbadebo Adejumo, Antje van der Net, and Carl Fredrik Berg. “Ion Composition Effect on Spontaneous Imbibition in Limestone Cores.” Energy & Fuels 36, no. 20, 2022.
  19. Erfani, Hamidreza, Masoud Babaei, Carl Fredrik Berg, and Vahid Niasar. “Scaling CO2 convection in confined aquifers: Effects of dispersion, permeability anisotropy and geochemistry.” Advances in Water Resources 164, 2022.
  20. Carl Fredrik Berg, W David Kennedy, David C Herrick, Conductivity in partially saturated porous media described by porosity, electrolyte saturation and saturation‐dependent tortuosity and constriction factor, Geophysical Prospecting 70 (2), 2022.
  21. Yan, Lifei, Yuanhao Chang, S. Majid Hassanizadeh, Senbo Xiao, Amir Raoof, Carl Fredrik Berg, and Jianying He. “A quantitative study of salinity effect on water diffusion in n-alkane phases: From pore-scale experiments to molecular dynamic simulation.” Fuel 324, 2022.
  22. Kurdistan Chawshin, Carl Fredrik Berg, Damiano Varagnolo, Olivier Lopez, Automated porosity estimation using CT-scans of extracted core data, Computational Geosciences 26(3), 2022.
  23. Danial Arab, Apostolos Kantzas, Ole Torsæter, Salem Akarri, Steven L Bryant, A Crucial Role of the Applied Capillary Pressure in Drainage Displacement, SPE Journal, 26(04), 2021.
  24. Sondre Gjengedal, Vegard Brøtan, Ole T Buset, Erik Larsen, Olav Å Berg, Ole Torsæter, Randi K Ramstad, Bernt O Hilmo, Bjørn S Frengstad, Fluid flow through 3D-printed particle beds: a new technique for understanding, validating, and improving predictability of permeability from empirical equations, Transport in Porous Media, 134(1), 2020.
  25. Hamid Hosseinzade Khanamiri, Per Arne Slotte, Carl Fredrik Berg, Contact angles in two-phase flow images, Transport in Porous Media 135(3), 2020.
  26. Carl Fredrik Berg, Per Arne Slotte, Hamid Hosseinzade Khanamiri, Geometrically derived efficiency of slow immiscible displacement in porous media, Physical Review E, 102(3), 2020.
  27. Per Arne Slotte, Carl Fredrik Berg, Hamid Hosseinzade Khanamiri, Predicting resistivity and permeability of porous media using Minkowski functionals, Transport in Porous Media, 131(2), 2020.
  28. Hamid Hosseinzade Khanamiri, Carl Fredrik Berg, Per Arne Slotte, Steffen Schlüter, Ole Torsæter, Description of free energy for immiscible two‐fluid flow in porous media by integral geometry and thermodynamics, Water Resources Research, 54(11), 2018