Dielectric spectra of water–oil-saturated porous media for the kHz range and determination of volume fractions of system components

The article presents a novel procedure of finding the water–oil ratio in a saturated porous medium by dielectric spectroscopy. Based on the study of experimental measurements of dielectric permittivity and the dielectric loss factor, it has been established that the dielectric spectrum in the kHz and MHz frequency range of the electromagnetic field in a porous medium saturated with fresh water is a characteristic symmetrical curve, whose symmetry may be distorted when oil is introduced into the system. The type of symmetry, degree of distortion, and corresponding physical mechanisms of polarization enable one to find the water–oil ratio without resorting to the mixture formulae traditionally used for finding the water–oil ratio in Maxwell–Wagner relaxation.