skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Apparent permeability prediction of organic shale with generalized lattice Boltzmann model considering surface diffusion effect

Journal Article · · Fuel
 [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (Australia); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Xi'an Jiaotong Univ., Shanxi (China); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  4. Univ. of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW (Australia)

Gas flow in shale is associated with both organic matter (OM) and inorganic matter (IOM) which contain nano-pores ranging in size from a few to hundreds of nano-meters. In addition to the non-continuum effect which leads to an apparent permeability of gas higher than the intrinsic permeability, the surface diffusion of adsorbed gas in organic pores also can influence the apparent permeability through its own transport mechanism. In this study, a generalized lattice Boltzmann model (GLBM) is employed for gas flow through the reconstructed shale matrix consisting of OM and IOM. The Expectation–Maximization (EM) algorithm is used to assign the pore size distribution to each component, and the dusty gas model (DGM) and generalized Maxwell–Stefan model (GMS) are adopted to calculate the apparent permeability accounting for multiple transport mechanisms including viscous flow, Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion. Effects of pore radius and pressure on permeability of both IOM and OM as well as effects of Langmuir parameters on OM are investigated. The effect of total organic content and distribution on the apparent permeability of the reconstructed shale matrix at different surface diffusivity is also studied. It is found that the influence of pore size and pressure on the apparent permeability of organic matter is affected by the surface diffusion of adsorbed gas. Furthermore, surface diffusion plays a significant role in determining apparent permeability and the velocity distribution of shale matrix.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1477708
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1341461
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-17-27936
Journal Information:
Fuel, Vol. 181, Issue C; ISSN 0016-2361
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 80 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (46)

Morphology, Genesis, and Distribution of Nanometer-Scale Pores in Siliceous Mudstones of the Mississippian Barnett Shale journal November 2009
Nanoscale Gas Flow in Shale Gas Sediments journal October 2007
A Generalized Framework Model for the Simulation of Gas Production in Unconventional Gas Reservoirs journal October 2014
Investigation of methane adsorption and its effect on gas transport in shale matrix through microscale and mesoscale simulations journal July 2016
Model for Surface Diffusion of Adsorbed Gas in Nanopores of Shale Gas Reservoirs journal March 2015
Report: a Model for Flows in Channels, Pipes, and Ducts at Micro and nano Scales journal February 1999
Effective Correlation of Apparent Gas Permeability in Tight Porous Media journal July 2009
A Numerical Study of Microscale Flow Behavior in Tight Gas and Shale Gas Reservoir Systems journal April 2011
A critical review of the pseudopotential multiphase lattice Boltzmann model: Methods and applications journal September 2014
Discrete effects on boundary conditions for the lattice Boltzmann equation in simulating microscale gas flows journal November 2007
A Lattice Boltzmann Model for Simulating Gas Flow in Kerogen Pores journal October 2014
Lattice Boltzmann Method for Simulation of Shale Gas Transport in Kerogen journal November 2012
The lattice Boltzmann method for isothermal micro-gaseous flow and its application in shale gas flow: A review journal April 2016
Pore-scale prediction of transport properties in reconstructed nanostructures of organic matter in shales journal October 2015
Generalized lattice Boltzmann model for flow through tight porous media with Klinkenberg's effect journal March 2015
Permeability prediction of shale matrix reconstructed using the elementary building block model journal November 2015
Molecular transport in nanopores: a theoretical perspective journal January 2011
Problems and pitfalls in the use of the fick formulation for intraparticle diffusion journal January 1993
The Maxwell-Stefan approach to mass transfer journal March 1997
An experimental study of combined gas phase and surface diffusion in porous glass journal March 1998
A stochastic permeability model for the shale-gas systems journal February 2015
Comparisons of pore size distribution: A case from the Western Australian gas shale formations journal December 2014
The influence of uniaxial compression upon pore size distribution in bi-modal soils journal March 2006
Lattice Boltzmann modeling and evaluation of fluid flow in heterogeneous porous media involving multiple matrix constituents journal January 2014
Gas transport mode criteria in ultra-tight porous media journal April 2015
Lattice Boltzmann modeling of microchannel flow in slip flow regime journal January 2009
Gas Permeability of Shale journal August 2012
Dual diffusion and finite mass exchange model for adsorption kinetics in activated carbon journal January 1998
The effect of adsorption and Knudsen diffusion on the steady-state permeability of microporous rocks journal March 2013
Effect of organic-matter type and thermal maturity on methane adsorption in shale-gas systems journal June 2012
Methane Adsorption on Shale under Simulated Geological Temperature and Pressure Conditions journal May 2013
Adsorption of methane and carbon dioxide on gas shale and pure mineral samples journal December 2014
Measurement of gas storage processes in shale and of the molecular diffusion coefficient in kerogen journal March 2014
Methane adsorption comparison of different thermal maturity kerogens in shale gas system journal October 2014
Carbon Dioxide Storage Capacity of Organic-Rich Shales journal December 2011
Adsorption and Diffusion of Shale Gas Reservoirs in Modeled Clay Minerals at Different Geological Depths journal November 2014
Experimental study and modelling of methane adsorption and diffusion in shale journal January 2014
A Unified Model for Gas Transfer in Nanopores of Shale-Gas Reservoirs: Coupling Pore Diffusion and Surface Diffusion journal October 2016
Interpretation of surface flow phenomenon of adsorbed gases by hopping model journal March 1981
Effect of surface heterogeneity on surface diffusion in microporous solids journal February 1971
Shale gas and non-aqueous fracturing fluids: Opportunities and challenges for supercritical CO2 journal June 2015
Gas flow in ultra-tight shale strata journal September 2012
Gaseous slip flow in long microchannels journal June 1997
Natural convective heat transfer in a fluid saturated variable porosity medium journal October 1997
Lattice Boltzmann model for incompressible flows through porous media journal September 2002
Nanopores and Apparent Permeability of Gas Flow in Mudrocks (Shales and Siltstone) journal August 2009

Cited By (6)

A novel numerical model of gas transport in multiscale shale gas reservoirs with considering surface diffusion and Langmuir slip conditions journal May 2019
Gas sorption and non-Darcy flow in shale reservoirs journal July 2017
Multicomponent Lattice Boltzmann Simulations of Gas Transport in a Coal Reservoir with Dynamic Adsorption journal July 2018
A Mathematical Pressure Transient Analysis Model for Multiple Fractured Horizontal Wells in Shale Gas Reservoirs journal January 2018
Micro-continuum Framework for Pore-Scale Multiphase Fluid Transport in Shale Formations journal October 2018
Quantifying the anisotropy and tortuosity of permeable pathways in clay-rich mudstones using models based on X-ray tomography journal November 2017