ABSTRACT: Experimental Alkali Feldspar Dissolution at 100°C by Carboxylic Acids and their Anions

Ronald K. Stoessell, Edward D. Pittman

Feldspar dissolution will enhance sandstone porosity if the released aluminum can be transported away in the subsurface waters. Carboxylic acids have been proposed to provide hydrogen ions to promote dissolution and anions to complex aqueous aluminum to keep it in solution. However, the hydrogen ions should react quickly following acid generation in source beds, leaving monocarboxylic anions with lesser amounts of dicarboxylic acids and their anions on feldspar dissolution and the apparent complexing of aluminum in solution.

Two-week dissolution experiments of alkali feldspar were run at 100°C and 300 bars in acetic acid, oxalic acid, and sodium salt solutions of chloride, acetate, propionate, oxalate, and malonate. Extrapolation of the results, to reservoir conditions during sandstone diagenesis, implies that concentrations of aluminum-organic complexes are not significant for acetate and propionate and are possibly significant for oxalate and malonate, depending upon fluid compositions. Propionate appeared to inhibit feldspar dissolution and hence might decrease secondary porosity formation. Increases in aluminum concentrations in the presence of oxalic and acetic acid solutions appear to be due to enhanced dissolution kinetics and greater aluminum solubility under low-pH conditions. Such low-pH fl ids are generally absent in subsurface reservoirs, making this an unlikely mechanism for enhancing porosity. Furthermore, the observed thermal instability of oxalate and malonate anions explains their general low concentrations in subsurface fluids which limits their aluminum complexing potential in reservoirs during late diagenesis.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91003©1990 AAPG Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, June 3-6, 1990