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The use of nuclear magnetic resonance for studying and detecting hydrocarbon contaminants in porous rocks
Author(s) -
Hedberg Stephen A.,
Knight Rosemary J.,
MacKay Alex L.,
Whittall Kenneth P.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/92wr02540
Subject(s) - saturation (graph theory) , hydrocarbon , porosity , gasoline , contamination , porous medium , geology , mineralogy , materials science , soil science , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , environmental chemistry , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , mathematics , combinatorics , ecology , biology
Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements have been made to assess the use of NMR in quantifying the pore‐scale behavior of hydrocarbon contaminants in porous rocks. NMR measurements were made on bulk water, bulk gasoline (the selected hydrocarbon contaminant), and a sample of Berea sandstone, saturated to various levels with the two fluids. When the sandstone contained either water or gasoline, decreasing the level of fluid saturation resulted in a linear decrease in the total integral of the signal amplitude and in the relaxation time T 1 . The first effect allows for the determination of the level of fluid saturation from the NMR data; the second effect indicates the preferential drainage of large pores as saturation decreases for both fluids. A significant difference in liquid/rock interaction, which was quantified by calculating the surface sink parameter of the two systems, resulted in separation between the response of the gasoline and the water when the sandstone sample was saturated with a mixture of the two liquids. NMR laboratory measurements proved to be a useful means of detecting and estimating the quantity of a contaminant present in a porous rock.