Composition in the Interface between Clay Mineral Surfaces and Divalent Cation Electrolytes

The interfacial free energy of a solid, which determines its adsorption properties, depends on interactions between the surface and the fluid. A change in surface composition can completely change the behavior of the solid. Decades of work have explored adsorption and its effects at solid–fluid interfaces from the macroscopic perspective and using molecular modeling, so the concept of the electric double layer (EDL) is well established in the community. However, direct, molecular level, experimental observations of the composition within the interface region, and its change with time and conditions, are not abundant. We used cryogenic X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (cryoXPS) to observe the composition in the clay mineral–solution interface region as a function of bulk solution composition, on illite and chlorite in MgCl2 and CaCl2 electrolytes, over a range of concentrations (1–125 mM), in situ, on vitrified samples. These samples were prepared from very thin smears of centrifuged wet paste that were instantaneously chilled to liquid N2 temperature. They preserved the adsorbed solution in its amorphous state, maintaining the location of the ions and water with respect to the solid, without the disruption that occurs during drying or the rearrangement that results as water crystallizes during freezing. With decreasing ionic strength, we could directly monitor the loss of negative charge in the interface region, producing an anion deficiency, as predicted by theory. The Cl–/Me2+ ratio dropped below 1 for chlorite at 12–25 mM MeCl2 and for illite at 75–100 mM. In addition to better understanding of clay mineral behavior in solution, this work demonstrates that only those clay minerals where surface charge density is the same or lower than that for chlorite contribute to a low salinity enhanced oil recovery response (LS EOR). This explains many of the contradictory results from studies about the role of clay minerals in LS EOR.