An Empirical Investigation into the Chromium-Containing Percentage of Carbon Steel on Oil and Water Wettability Behaviour

Abstract:

Steel is a critical material in many industrial applications, particularly in the petroleum sector, where components are often exposed to water-containing crude oil. The presence of water in crude oil can accelerate corrosion processes that compromise extraction, transportation, and export operations, resulting in increased maintenance costs, operational downtime, and negative environmental impacts. Wettability, defined as the tendency of a liquid to spread on or adhere to a solid surface, provides essential insight into the interaction between liquid phases and metallic surfaces such as pipe steel, and can influence corrosion behaviour and adhesion characteristics. Contact angles are commonly used to quantify wettability, and are affected by both the properties of the liquid and the composition of the solid materials.This study reviews previous research and analyses experimental results to evaluate the influence of oil and water wettability on the surfaces of four steel pipe materials. The experimental investigation involved the measurement of contact angles of glycerin oil, hydraulic oil, petroleum, and a hydraulic oil/petroleum mixtures on four steel surfaces (1.4050 steel, 1.4301 steel, C60, and 42CrMo4) using KSV software to record dynamic changes in contact angle over a period of 5 minutes for each sample. The main observations were that the wettability of hydraulic oil and petroleum was better than that of glycerin oil and water measured on all types of steel surfaces. Moreover, the wettability of petroleum and hydraulic oil increased while water and glycerin oil decreased when the Cr content of the steel increased (for example, when Cr content was 18wt.%, Θ_petroleum= 8°, but Θ_water= 76° ).

• Periodical: Materials Science Forum (Volume 1198)
• Pages: 89-98
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-P5wCbG
• Online since: August 2026
• Authors: Mohanad Fadhil*, Peter Baumli
• Keywords: Anti-Corrosion, Chromium, Oil Separation, Surface Tension, Wettability

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