Migration of through Carbonate Cores: Effect of Salinity, Pressure, and Cyclic Brine- Injection
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 146, Issue 2
Abstract
Geo-sequestration of carbon dioxide () in saline formations is one of the feasible options for reducing the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. This process involves the capturing of from emission sources followed by its compression and then injecting the compressed in deep geological formations for its long-term storage. The suitable geological formations for the sequestration of are normally comprised of sandstones, shales, coal beds, and carbonates. Amongst these, carbonates are the highly reactive formations of a hydrophobic nature and have complex pore structures, and hence, sequestration and its subsequent evolution in carbonates require a thorough investigation. Further, planning geo-sequestration in carbonate formations requires assessment of behavior under high salinity and pressure conditions as these factors play a major role in retaining injected safely for a long geological time period. Thus, exploring multiphase -brine migration processes in carbonates using practical experiments is of great significance for estimating the storage capacity of potential geo-sequestration sites and for ensuring their storage security. The multiphase characteristic of saline carbonate formations can also get affected during their flooding with supercritical . Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate the movement of through different saline carbonate cores under representative reservoir conditions. The laboratory-scale core flooding experiments were conducted on two different cores of carbonate formations to estimate the effect of salinity and injection pressure on migration along with the influence of cyclic brine- flooding on characteristics of the considered cores. A series of practical experiments were performed considering 3% and 7.5% levels of salinity under two different injection pressures of 8 and 10 MPa for evaluating the effects of different hydrogeological parameters on the multiphase flow behavior and sequestration capacity of the carbonate formations. For this, brine and supercritical were injected through Edward white and Edward yellow carbonate cores to obtain the changes in pressure drop across the cores with time. The results show that under high salinity conditions, pressure drop in Edward white and yellow carbonate cores are 2 and 0.3 MPa, respectively, while in the case of low salinity, 1.5 and 0.2 MPa of pressure drop was observed in the selected cores. A high differential pressure (DP) trend was observed using a 10 MPa injection pressure, while a low DP trend was recorded for the 8 MPa injection pressure. An increment in pressure drop across the cores with consecutive injection cycles of brine and clearly indicates some pores clogging in cores due to the reactive nature of the selected carbonate samples. Thus, the results of this study provide a better understanding of changes that occur at -brine-carbonate interfaces under reservoir like conditions of a typical site, which can help in planning the geo-sequestration of in carbonate saline formations.
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Data Availability Statement
All data generated or analyzed during the study are included in the published paper.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) for the senior research fellowship and Texas A&M University at Qatar for their support during the course of development of this research. CCTech Pune and the Qatar Foundation are gratefully acknowledged for financial support. This publication was also made possible by the Grant No. NPRP10-0101-170091 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation).
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Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 146 • Issue 2 • February 2020
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©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Feb 11, 2019
Accepted: Aug 21, 2019
Published online: Dec 11, 2019
Published in print: Feb 1, 2020
Discussion open until: May 11, 2020
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