Sealing efficiency analysis for shallow-layer caprocks in CO2 geological storage

Abstract

The CO2 migrated from deeper to shallower layers may change its phase state from supercritical state to gaseous state (called phase transition). This phase transition makes both viscosity and density of CO2 experience a sharp variation, which may induce the CO2 further penetration into shallow layers. This is a critical and dangerous situation for the security of CO2 geological storage. However, the assessment of caprock sealing efficiency with a fully coupled multi-physical model is still missing on this phase transition effect. This study extends our previous fully coupled multi-physical model to include this phase transition effect. The dramatic changes of CO2 viscosity and density are incorporated into the model. The impacts of temperature and pressure on caprock sealing efficiency (expressed by CO2 penetration depth) are then numerically investigated for a caprock layer at the depth of 800 m. The changes of CO2 physical properties with gas partial pressure and formation temperature in the phase transition zone are explored. It is observed that phase transition revises the linear relationship of CO2 penetration depth and time square root as well as penetration depth. The real physical properties of CO2 in the phase transition zone are critical to the safety of CO2 sequestration. Pressure and temperature have different impact mechanisms on the security of CO2 geological storage.