Abstract
The optimal CO2 storage operation requires high permeability in the near-well region in order to keep it safe and cost-efficient. Nucleation and growth of salt crystals driven by the evaporation of formation water into under-saturated (dry) super-critical CO2 streams result in the changes in porosity and permeability of the near well-bore area. Permeability reduction is one of the main reasons for injectivity losses in the context of CO2 storage in saline aquifers. According to recent studies, during CO2 storage, salt crystals grow in two different forms: 1) single, large crystals in the aqueous phase, and 2) aggregates of micro-meter size salt crystals in the CO2-rich vapor phase. All previous numerical studies at pore-scale have addressed the formation of single, large crystals in the aqueous phase. In this work we have developed a 3D pore-scale reactive transport solver based on a D3Q19 advection-diffusion Lattice-Boltzmann model. The model takes for the first time salt nucleation into consideration via a new probabilistic approach to simulate the formation of micro-meter size salt crystal aggregates in the CO2-rich phase and their effect on changes in pore morphology and permeability. Comparing the results of porosity-permeability relations with some of the well-known clogging models, confirms the need for a new clogging model to capture the permeability reduction caused by salt aggregates.
Highlights
Global warming results in climate change that may cause dramatic and irreversible changes for life on the planet
For certain thermodynamic conditions, asphaltene may not pose a problem during CO2 injection and CO2 may act as an inhibitor, making asphaltene more stable
We present a novel approach for incorporating formation drying-out and halite-precipitation modelling into compositional automatic differentiation (AD)-MATLAB reservoir simulation tool (MRST) software
Summary
Global warming results in climate change that may cause dramatic and irreversible changes for life on the planet. The main cause of global warming is the emission of greenhouse gasses. This chapter gives a brief introduction to climate change and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) as one of the proposed solutions for global warming and as a general background for this PhD study. Mechanistic thermodynamic models that predict asphaltene phase behavior can be divided in two main categories, namely colloidal and solubility models. The main cause of global warming is the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). Accumulation of GHGs such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), water vapor (H2O), nitrous oxide (N2O), and ozone (O3) in the atmosphere makes the planet a huge greenhouse because they let sunlight in but keep some of the heats from going out. Other industrial production (such as cement, iron, and steel) and forestry can emit a considerable amount of CO2 to the atmosphere
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