The role of the spatial heterogeneity and correlation length of surface wettability on two-phase flow in a CO2-water-rock system

Guo, Ruichang; Dalton, Laura E.; Fan, Ming; McClure, James; Zeng, Lingzao; Crandall, Dustin; Chen, Cheng

doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2020.103763

The role of the spatial heterogeneity and correlation length of surface wettability on two-phase flow in a CO₂-water-rock system

Journal Article · Tue Sep 29 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Advances in Water Resources

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2020.103763· OSTI ID:1839430

Guo, Ruichang ^[1]; Dalton, Laura E. ^[2]; Fan, Ming ^[1]; McClure, James ^[1]; Zeng, Lingzao ^[3]; Crandall, Dustin ^[2]; Chen, Cheng ^[1]

Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Morgantown, WV (United States)
Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou (China)

This study characterized and modeled heterogeneous surface wettability in sandstone and investigated the role of spatial heterogeneity and correlation length of surface wettability on relative permeability in a supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂)-brine-rock system. Understanding the role of wettability heterogeneity on relative permeability is essential to geological CO₂ sequestration, oil and gas recovery, and contaminated groundwater remediation. Although numerous studies have attempted to understand the influences of surface wettability, capillary number (Ca), and viscosity ratio, the role of the spatial variation and correlation length of surface wettability on two-phase flow in three-dimensional (3D) porous media has not been unraveled due to the challenges in the measurement and representation of realistic rock surface wettability. In this work, we conducted in-situ measurements of surface contact angle (CA) in a Bentheimer sandstone after CO₂ flooding using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), and found that the pore-scale CA distribution on rock surfaces followed a log-normal distribution associated with a spatial correlation length. Based on the statistical information from CT scanning, a Gaussian random field was used to model CA distributions that had desired standard deviations and spatial correlation lengths, which were then adjusted within a certain range of values for sensitivity analyses to study their combined effects on the two-phase flow in the porous medium using the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method. The LB two-phase flow simulation was accelerated using hybrid, multicore parallel computing to overcome the challenges in simulating multiphase flow in a large 3D domain having 800 × 800 × 600 nodes. The simulation results showed that the surface wettability heterogeneity (i.e., standard deviation of CA) had a lesser effect on the relative permeability of the wetting fluid (water) but a more significant impact on the relative permeability of the non-wetting fluid (scCO₂). The Corey model was used to fit the LB-simulated relative permeability curves of water and scCO₂ and showed that the variations in the relative permeability curves for both water and scCO₂ increased as the standard deviation and spatial correlation length of CA increased. This study illustrated that the assumption of homogeneous surface wettability may cause errors in multiphase flow simulations. Furthermore, the impacts of both the standard deviation and spatial correlation length of CAs should be accounted for. This is the first study that explored the spatial correlation lengths associated with CA distributions on sandstone surfaces and comprehensively investigated the roles of both spatial variation and correlation length of CA on two-phase flow properties in 3D porous media. The optimized LB multiphase flow model was proved a powerful tool to study the interplays and combined effects of these statistical parameters, which had critical applications in numerous natural and engineering processes that involved multiphase flow in porous media.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)

Grant/Contract Number:: FE0026825

OSTI ID:: 1839430

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 2325492

Journal Information:: Advances in Water Resources, Journal Name: Advances in Water Resources Journal Issue: 146 Vol. 146; ISSN 0309-1708

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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58 GEOSCIENCES
Impact of the standard deviation and spatial correlation length of contact angle distribution on relative permeability
Pore scale measurement of surface contact angles in a CO2-water-rock system
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The role of the spatial heterogeneity and correlation length of surface wettability on two-phase flow in a CO2-water-rock system

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The role of the spatial heterogeneity and correlation length of surface wettability on two-phase flow in a CO₂-water-rock system