Paraffin deposition in the oil pipeline is a serious problem during oil production. The zinc-rich coating can be a good candidate for paraffin prevention. In this paper, zinc powder used for the zinc-rich coating was modified with rare earth lanthanum to improve the paraffin prevention performance. Wetting behaviors (the relative contact angle and the saturation rate for paraffin on zinc powder) of bare and modified powder zinc were studied by capillary rise experiment to evaluate the paraffin prevention performance. The results indicated that the modification changed the surface morphology and composition of zinc powder, and modified zinc powder showed the best paraffin prevention performance (contact angle and saturation rate were 55 degrees and 87.4%, respectively) after modification in the solution of 0.012 mol/L La(NO3)(3) for 24 h. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V.