Characteristics of an immiscible flow of supercritical CO2 and water in porous media under sequestration conditions

Abstract

This chapter describes experimental research on two-phase flow of supercritical CO2 and water in porous media under sequestration conditions. Carbon dioxide is considered to be the greenhouse gas that most contributes to global warming on earth. In response to this problem, several methods have been proposed to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. A magnetic resonance imaging technique is used to directly visualize the distribution of supercritical CO2 injected into porous media containing water. In situ water saturation distributions in a Berea sandstone core and a packed bed of glass beads were successfully visualized at conditions that simulate those at 800–1000 m depths in an aquifer. By applying a core flood interpretation method to saturation data, the local Darcy phase velocities as a function of saturation can be described.