Interfacial Tension and Contact Angle Apparatus

The high-pressure, high-temperature Interfacial Tension (IFT) and Contact Angle (CA) measurement apparatus was designed and fabricated entirely at the University of Wyoming. The system includes several advanced modules in order to accurately and reliably measure IFT, as well as dynamic and static contact angle. This apparatus is compatible with partially miscible fluids (by a phase pre-equilibration module), corrosive fluids such as sour gases, since the entire setup is made out of Hastelloy C276, surfactant systems with very low IFT values (as low as 0.001 mN/m), and reservoir rock systems. The results from this setup provide a better understanding of fluid-fluid and rock-fluid interfacial interactions at reservoir conditions. The COIFPM hosts nine of these systems allowing for multiple fluid systems to be characterized simultaneously for a variety of project applications.