Carbon Dioxide Sequestration and Drainage in Saline Aquifer

Abstract

Geological storage of CO2 in saline aquifers is recognized as a favorable technique that could deliver a significant decrease in CO2 emissions over the short to medium-term. However, the major risk is the possibility of leakage and injection limitation due to pore pressure. This research investigates the three major mechanisms of CO2 trapping to determine which method safely captures the most CO2, interrogates the pore pressure effect on storage, and compares traditional core flooding methods for CO2 storage with CO2 drainage which is more practical in the aquifer. A core flooding set up was built to replicate reservoir conditions of the Anadarko Basin in Texas, USA. The research involved three reservoir pay zone rocks obtained from depths of about 7687ft that were pieced together to undergo core flooding at 4400psi-5200psi and a temperature of 168°F. In the first study conducted the core was flooded with supercritical CO2 and brine of salinity 4000ppm to generate relative permeability curves to represent drainage and imbibition. For the duration of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th studies the core saturated with brine is flooded with CO2 at pressures of 4400psi, 4800psi, and 5200psi. Parameters like the volume of CO2 captured, connate water volumes, differential pressure, Ph of produced water, trapping efficiency, relative permeability, and fractional flow curves are noted. After scrutinizing the result it is observed that the highest volume of CO2 is captured by solubility trapping followed by structural trapping and residual trapping in that order. From this research, it can be concluded that CO2 trapping, at least for these reservoir rocks, is not affected by pore pressure. Also contrary to most practices CO2 storage is best replaced in the laboratory using drainage experiments instead of the widely used relative permeability approach.