Predicting Possible Effects of H2S Impurity on CO2 Transportation and Geological Storage

Abstract

For CO(2) geological storage, permitting impurities, such as H(2)S, in CO(2) streams can lead to a great potential for capital and energy savings for CO(2) capture and separation, but it also increases costs and risk management for transportation and storage. To evaluate the cost-benefits, using a recently developed model (Ji, X.; Zhu, C. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 2012, 91, 40-59), this study predicts phase equilibria and thermodynamic properties of the system H(2)S-CO(2)-H(2)O-NaCl under transportation and storage conditions and discusses potential effects of H(2)S on transportation and storage. The prediction shows that inclusion of H(2)S in CO(2) streams may lead to two-phase flow. For H(2)S-CO(2) mixtures, at a given temperature, the bubble and dew pressures decrease with increasing H(2)S content, while the mass density increases at low pressures and decreases at high pressures. For the CO(2)-H(2)S-H(2)O system, the total gas solubility increases while the mass density of the aqueous solution with dissolved gas decreases. For the CO(2)-H(2)S-H(2)O-NaCl system, at a given temperature, pressure and NaCl concentration, the solubility of the gas mixture in aqueous phase increases with increasing H(2)S content and then decreases, while the mass density of aqueous solution decreases and may be lower than the mass density of the solution without gas dissolution.