Zeta potential of CO-rich aqueous solutions in contact with intact sandstone sample at temperatures of 23 °C and 40 °C and pressures up to 10.0 MPa.

Despite the broad range of interest and applications, controls on the electric surface charge and the zeta potential of silica in contact with aqueous solutions saturated with dissolved CO at conditions relevant to natural systems, remains unreported. There have been no published zeta potential measurements conducted in such systems at equilibrium, hence the effect of composition, pH, temperature and pressure remains unknown. We describe a novel methodology developed for the streaming potential measurements under these conditions, and report zeta potential values for the first time obtained with Fontainebleau sandstone core sample saturated with carbonated NaCl, NaSO, CaCl and MgCl solutions under equilibrium conditions at pressures up to 10 MPa and temperatures up to 40 °C. The results demonstrate that pH of solutions is the only control on the zeta potential, while temperature, CO pressure and salt type affect pH values. We report three empirical relationships that describe the pH dependence of the zeta potential for: i) dead (partial CO pressure of 10 atm) NaCl/NaSO, ii) dead CaCl/MgCl solutions, and iii) for all live (fully saturated with dissolved CO) solutions. The proposed new relationships provide essential insights into interfacial electrochemical properties of silica-water systems at conditions relevant to CO geological storage.