Natural gas desorption versus laboratory gas adsorption with pore shrinkage

Abstract

To perform hydro-mechanical experiments on sorptive geomaterials, the gas is injected into bulk of the specimen to re-saturate it representing its in-situ state, and adsorption is monitored until gas equilibrium is reached. We show in this study that this experimental procedure does not reflect the in-situ state of the sample leading to potentially significant errors. We measured the carbon dioxide (CO2) adsorption capacity of the coal specimen (free of gas) and its powder with different particle sizes and compared the results with field desorption data. Experimental results indicate an increase in coal adsorption capacity with decrease in coal particle size. Interestingly, the field data exhibits much higher desorbed gas amount compared to laboratory-measured adsorption capacity of coal powder with smallest measurable particle size under the same gas pressure. To shed light on the observation of field desorption – laboratory adsorption hysteresis, the micro-scale gas adsorption experiments combined with X-ray micro-Computed Tomography (XRCT) measurements were conducted where an intact specimen was imaged before (dry state) and after Krypton injection. The analysis of the XRCT images indicates that the Krypton adsorption closes/reduces the aperture of pre-existing fractures in the specimen. In addition, the Krypton diffuses only in a small region near pre-existing fractures despite its adsorption measurement indicating gas equilibrium and specimen saturation. This observation proposes that significant portion of pores exposed to Krypton experienced a size reduction by swelling resulting in partial saturation of the specimen. This patrial saturation at laboratory conditions evidently cannot resemble the in-situ state of gas sorption capacity.