FRACTAL PORE STRUCTURE MODEL AND MULTILAYER FRACTAL ADSORPTION IN SHALE

Abstract

The complex structure and surface property of porous media have significant impact on its accumulation and adsorption capacity. Based on the fractal theory, this paper presents a fractal pore structure model for shales. The effect of different pore structures on fractal dimension is discussed, and the influence of fractal dimension and pore size distribution on porosity is also analyzed. It is shown that the fractal dimension D decreases with the increase of structure parameter q/m for a certain pore diameter ratio, and porosity has positive relationship with fractal dimension. This paper also presents a multilayer fractal adsorption model which takes into account the roughness of adsorption surface by using fractal theory. With the introduction of pseudo-saturated vapor pressure in the supercritical temperature condition, the proposed adsorption model can be applied into a wider range of temperature. Based on the low-pressure nitrogen adsorption and methane isothermal adsorption experiments, the effect of fractal dimension on the adsorption behavior of shales is discussed. Fractal dimension has significant impact on the surface adsorption property and adsorption layer number n. The monolayer saturated adsorption volume Vm increases with the increase of D, while parameter C has the opposite variation trend. Finally, the optimal combination of fractal parameters for describing pore structure of shale samples is selected.