Experimental analysis of spatial correlation effects on capillary trapping of supercritical CO2 at the intermediate laboratory scale in heterogeneous porous media
Abstract
Abstract Several numerical studies have demonstrated that the heterogeneous nature of typical sedimentary formations can favorably dampen the accumulation of mobile CO 2 phase underneath the caprock. Core flooding experiments have also shown that contrasts in capillary entry pressure can lead to buildup of nonwetting fluid phase (NWP) at interfaces between facies. Explicit representation of geological heterogeneity at the intermediate (cm‐to‐m) scale is a powerful approach to identify the key mechanisms that control multiphase flow dynamics in porous media. The ability to carefully control flow regime and permeability contrast at a scale that is relevant to CO 2 plume dynamics in saline formations offers valuable information to understand immiscible displacement processes and provides a benchmark for mathematical models. To provide insight into the impact of capillary heterogeneity on flow dynamics and trapping efficiency of supercritical CO 2 under successive drainage and imbibition conditions, we present an experimental investigation conducted in a synthetic sand reservoir. By mimicking the interplay of governing forces at reservoir conditions via application of surrogate fluids, we performed three immiscible displacement experiments to observe the entrapment of NWP in heterogeneous porous media. Capillary trapping performance is evaluated for each scenario through spatial and temporal variations of NWPmore »
- Authors:
-
- Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); Univ. of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX (United States)
- Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States); Imperial College, London (United Kingdom)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1474889
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1402307
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; DE‐FE0004630
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Water Resources Research
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 51; Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 0043-1397
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES; intermediate‐scale experiments; surrogate fluids; capillary heterogeneity; trapping models
Citation Formats
Trevisan, Luca, Pini, Ronny, Cihan, Abdullah, Birkholzer, Jens T., Zhou, Quanlin, and Illangasekare, Tissa H. Experimental analysis of spatial correlation effects on capillary trapping of supercritical CO2 at the intermediate laboratory scale in heterogeneous porous media. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1002/2015WR017440.
Trevisan, Luca, Pini, Ronny, Cihan, Abdullah, Birkholzer, Jens T., Zhou, Quanlin, & Illangasekare, Tissa H. Experimental analysis of spatial correlation effects on capillary trapping of supercritical CO2 at the intermediate laboratory scale in heterogeneous porous media. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017440
Trevisan, Luca, Pini, Ronny, Cihan, Abdullah, Birkholzer, Jens T., Zhou, Quanlin, and Illangasekare, Tissa H. Wed .
"Experimental analysis of spatial correlation effects on capillary trapping of supercritical CO2 at the intermediate laboratory scale in heterogeneous porous media". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR017440. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1474889.
@article{osti_1474889,
title = {Experimental analysis of spatial correlation effects on capillary trapping of supercritical CO2 at the intermediate laboratory scale in heterogeneous porous media},
author = {Trevisan, Luca and Pini, Ronny and Cihan, Abdullah and Birkholzer, Jens T. and Zhou, Quanlin and Illangasekare, Tissa H.},
abstractNote = {Abstract Several numerical studies have demonstrated that the heterogeneous nature of typical sedimentary formations can favorably dampen the accumulation of mobile CO 2 phase underneath the caprock. Core flooding experiments have also shown that contrasts in capillary entry pressure can lead to buildup of nonwetting fluid phase (NWP) at interfaces between facies. Explicit representation of geological heterogeneity at the intermediate (cm‐to‐m) scale is a powerful approach to identify the key mechanisms that control multiphase flow dynamics in porous media. The ability to carefully control flow regime and permeability contrast at a scale that is relevant to CO 2 plume dynamics in saline formations offers valuable information to understand immiscible displacement processes and provides a benchmark for mathematical models. To provide insight into the impact of capillary heterogeneity on flow dynamics and trapping efficiency of supercritical CO 2 under successive drainage and imbibition conditions, we present an experimental investigation conducted in a synthetic sand reservoir. By mimicking the interplay of governing forces at reservoir conditions via application of surrogate fluids, we performed three immiscible displacement experiments to observe the entrapment of NWP in heterogeneous porous media. Capillary trapping performance is evaluated for each scenario through spatial and temporal variations of NWP saturation; for this reason we adopted X‐ray attenuation to precisely measure phase saturation throughout the flow domain and apply spatial moment analysis. The sweeping performance of two different permeability fields with comparable variance but distinct spatial correlation was compared against a homogeneous base case with equivalent mean permeability by means of spatial moment analysis.},
doi = {10.1002/2015WR017440},
journal = {Water Resources Research},
number = 11,
volume = 51,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Oct 21 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Wed Oct 21 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
Effects of permeability on CO 2 trapping mechanisms and buoyancy-driven CO 2 migration in saline formations : EFFECT OF PERMEABILITY ON CO
journal, July 2010
- Han, Weon Shik; Lee, Si-Yong; Lu, Chuan
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 46, Issue 7
Evaluation of relative permeability functions as inputs to multiphase flow models simulating supercritical CO2 behavior in deep geologic formations
journal, October 2015
- Mori, Hiroko; Trevisan, Luca; Illangasekare, Tissa H.
- International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol. 41
Injection and Storage of CO2 in Deep Saline Aquifers: Analytical Solution for CO2 Plume Evolution During Injection
journal, March 2005
- Nordbotten, Jan Martin; Celia, Michael A.; Bachu, Stefan
- Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 58, Issue 3
Infiltration and redistribution of perchloroethylene in partially saturated, stratified porous media
journal, November 1998
- Hofstee, C.; Oostrom, M.; Dane, J. H.
- Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 34, Issue 4
A Review of Multidimensional, Multifluid, Intermediate-Scale Experiments: Flow Behavior, Saturation Imaging, and Tracer Detection and Quantification
journal, January 2007
- Oostrom, M.; Dane, J. H.; Wietsma, T. W.
- Vadose Zone Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 3
Nonaqueous-Phase Liquid Infiltration and Immobilization in Heterogeneous Media: 1. Experimental Methods and Two-Layered Reference Case
journal, January 2007
- Fagerlund, F.; Illangasekare, T. H.; Niemi, A.
- Vadose Zone Journal, Vol. 6, Issue 3
Buoyant dispersal of CO 2 during geological storage : BUOYANT DISPERSAL OF CO
journal, January 2010
- Hesse, M. A.; Woods, A. W.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 37, Issue 1
Investigation of density-dependent gas advection of trichloroethylene: Experiment and a model validation exercise
journal, July 1995
- Lenhard, R. J.; Oostrom, M.; Simmons, C. S.
- Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 19, Issue 1
Interface pinning of immiscible gravity-exchange flows in porous media
journal, February 2013
- Zhao, Benzhong; MacMinn, Christopher W.; Szulczewski, Michael L.
- Physical Review E, Vol. 87, Issue 2
The effects of capillary forces on the axisymmetric propagation of two-phase, constant-flux gravity currents in porous media
journal, March 2013
- Golding, Madeleine J.; Huppert, Herbert E.; Neufeld, Jerome A.
- Physics of Fluids, Vol. 25, Issue 3
Investigation of mechanisms of supercritical CO2 trapping in deep saline reservoirs using surrogate fluids at ambient laboratory conditions
journal, October 2014
- Trevisan, Luca; Cihan, Abdullah; Fagerlund, Fritjof
- International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol. 29
Capillary pinning and blunting of immiscible gravity currents in porous media
journal, September 2014
- Zhao, Benzhong; MacMinn, Christopher W.; Huppert, Herbert E.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 50, Issue 9
Calculation of Imbibition Relative Permeability for Two- and Three-Phase Flow From Rock Properties
journal, June 1968
- Land, Carlon S.
- Society of Petroleum Engineers Journal, Vol. 8, Issue 02
Performance of Immiscible Water-Alternating-Gas (IWAG) Injection at Kuparuk River Unit, North Slope, Alaska
conference, April 2013
- Ma, T. D.; Youngren, G. K.
- SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition
Storage of CO2 in saline aquifers: Effects of gravity, viscous, and capillary forces on amount and timing of trapping
journal, October 2007
- Taku Ide, S.; Jessen, Kristian; Orr, Franklin M.
- International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol. 1, Issue 4, p. 481-491
New Trapping Mechanism in Carbon Sequestration
journal, August 2009
- Saadatpoor, Ehsan; Bryant, Steven L.; Sepehrnoori, Kamy
- Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 82, Issue 1
Supercritical CO2 core flooding and imbibition in Tako sandstone—Influence of sub-core scale heterogeneity
journal, January 2011
- Shi, Ji-Quan; Xue, Ziqiu; Durucan, Sevket
- International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Design of carbon dioxide storage in aquifers
journal, March 2009
- Qi, R.; LaForce, T.; Blunt, M.
- International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol. 3, Issue 2, p. 195-205
Prudhoe Bay Gas/Oil Relative Permeability
journal, February 1997
- Jerauld, G. R.
- SPE Reservoir Engineering, Vol. 12, Issue 01
Impact of relative permeability hysteresis on geological CO 2 storage : IMPACT OF HYSTERESIS ON GEOLOGICAL CO
journal, December 2006
- Juanes, R.; Spiteri, E. J.; Orr, F. M.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 42, Issue 12
Laminated Clastic Reservoirs: The Interplay of Capillary Pressure and Sedimentary Architecture
conference, April 2013
- Corbett, P. W. M.; Ringrose, P. S.; Jensen, J. L.
- SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition
Capillary heterogeneity trapping of CO 2 in a sandstone rock at reservoir conditions : CAPILLARY HETEROGENEITY TRAPPING OF CO
journal, August 2011
- Krevor, Samuel C. M.; Pini, Ronny; Li, Boxiao
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, Issue 15
Heterogeneous saline formations for carbon dioxide disposal: Impact of varying heterogeneity on containment and trapping
journal, May 2007
- Flett, Matthew; Gurton, Randal; Weir, Geoff
- Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Vol. 57, Issue 1-2
Experimental study of movement and distribution of dense organic contaminants in heterogeneous aquifers
journal, November 1995
- Illangasekare, Tissa H.; Ramsey, James L.; Jensen, Karsten H.
- Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 20, Issue 1-2
Influence of small-scale heterogeneity on upward CO2 plume migration in storage aquifers
journal, September 2015
- Li, Boxiao; Benson, Sally M.
- Advances in Water Resources, Vol. 83
Experimental observations of multiphase flow in heterogeneous porous media
journal, December 1989
- Kueper, Bernard H.; Abbott, Wesley; Farquhar, Graham
- Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 5, Issue 1
Hysteretic enhancement of carbon dioxide trapping in deep aquifers
journal, July 2014
- Rahunanthan, A.; Furtado, F.; Marchesin, D.
- Computational Geosciences, Vol. 18, Issue 6
Numerical simulation of water flow in three dimensional heterogeneous porous media observed in a magnetic resonance imaging experiment: NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF WATER FLOW IN 3D
journal, June 2008
- Yoon, Hongkyu; Zhang, Changyong; Werth, Charles J.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 44, Issue 6
Immiscible Displacement in Cross-Bedded Heterogeneous Porous Media
journal, December 2010
- Dawe, Richard A.; Caruana, Albert; Grattoni, Carlos A.
- Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 87, Issue 1
Multiphase flow behaviour during CO2 geo-sequestration: Emphasis on the effect of cyclic CO2–brine flooding
journal, November 2011
- Saeedi, Ali; Rezaee, Reza; Evans, Brian
- Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Vol. 79, Issue 3-4
A natural gradient experiment on solute transport in a sand aquifer: 2. Spatial moments and the advection and dispersion of nonreactive tracers
journal, December 1986
- Freyberg, David L.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 22, Issue 13
Effect of Vertical Heterogeneity on Long-Term Migration of CO2 in Saline Formations
journal, November 2009
- Green, Christopher P.; Ennis-King, Jonathan
- Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 82, Issue 1
Buoyancy-Dominated Multiphase Flow and Its Effect on Geological Sequestration of CO2
journal, December 2008
- Bryant, Steven L.; Lakshminarasimhan, Srivatsan; Pope, Gary A.
- SPE Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 04
Fingering of Dense Nonaqueous Phase Liquids in Porous Media: 1. Experimental Investigation
journal, May 1995
- Held, Rudolf J.; Illangasekare, Tissa H.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 31, Issue 5
Immiscible flow behaviour in laminated and cross-bedded sandstones
journal, April 1993
- Ringrose, P. S.; Sorbie, K. S.; Corbett, P. W. M.
- Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Vol. 9, Issue 2
Displacement of residual nonwetting fluid from porous media
journal, January 1981
- Larson, R. G.; Davis, H. T.; Scriven, L. E.
- Chemical Engineering Science, Vol. 36, Issue 1
Laboratory study of geological carbon sequestration using surrogate fluids: Dielectric measurement and scaling of capillary pressure–saturation relationships
journal, June 2015
- Mori, Hiroko; Sakaki, Toshihiro; Illangasekare, Tissa H.
- International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol. 37
Characterization and scaling of mesoscale heterogeneities in sandstones: CAPILLARY HETEROGENEITY AND SCALING
journal, August 2013
- Pini, Ronny; Benson, Sally M.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 40, Issue 15
A Closed-form Equation for Predicting the Hydraulic Conductivity of Unsaturated Soils1
journal, January 1980
- van Genuchten, M. Th.
- Soil Science Society of America Journal, Vol. 44, Issue 5
A modeling approach to represent hysteresis in capillary pressure-saturation relationship based on fluid connectivity in void space: A MODELING APPROACH TO REPRESENT HYSTERESIS
journal, January 2014
- Cihan, Abdullah; Birkholzer, Jens; Illangasekare, Tissa H.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 50, Issue 1
Two-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media: 2. Model application
journal, June 1991
- Kueper, Bernard H.; Frind, Emil O.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 27, Issue 6
A New Model of Trapping and Relative Permeability Hysteresis for All Wettability Characteristics
journal, September 2008
- Spiteri, Elizabeth J.; Juanes, Ruben; Blunt, Martin J.
- SPE Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 03
Accelerating CO 2 Dissolution in Saline Aquifers for Geological Storage — Mechanistic and Sensitivity Studies
journal, June 2009
- Hassanzadeh, Hassan; Pooladi-Darvish, Mehran; Keith, David W.
- Energy & Fuels, Vol. 23, Issue 6
Heterogeneity in Sedimentary Deposits: A Review of Structure-Imitating, Process-Imitating, and Descriptive Approaches
journal, April 1996
- Koltermann, Christine E.; Gorelick, Steven M.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 32, Issue 9
Dependence on Temperature, Pressure, and Salinity of the IFT and Relative Permeability Displacement Characteristics of CO2 Injected in Deep Saline Aquifers
conference, April 2013
- Bennion, Douglas Brant; Bachu, Stefan
- SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition
Reservoir Modeling of CO2 Plume Behavior Calibrated Against Monitoring Data From Sleipner, Norway
conference, April 2013
- Singh, Varunendra Pratap; Cavanagh, Andrew; Hansen, Hilde
- SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition
Effect of Vertical Heterogeneity on Long-Term Migration of CO2 in Saline Formations
journal, February 2009
- Green, C.; Ennis-King, J.; Pruess, K.
- Energy Procedia, Vol. 1, Issue 1
Works referencing / citing this record:
The Role of Capillary Hysteresis and Pore‐Scale Heterogeneity in Limiting the Migration of Buoyant Immiscible Fluids in Porous Media
journal, July 2018
- Cihan, Abdullah; Wang, Shibo; Tokunaga, Tetsu K.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 54, Issue 7
The Role Of Capillary Hysteresis And Pore-Scale Heterogeneity In Limiting The Migration Of Buoyant Immiscible Fluids In Porous Media
text, January 2018
- Cihan, Abdullah; Wang, Shibo; Tokunaga, Tetsu K.
- Zenodo
The Role Of Capillary Hysteresis And Pore-Scale Heterogeneity In Limiting The Migration Of Buoyant Immiscible Fluids In Porous Media
text, January 2018
- Cihan, Abdullah; Wang, Shibo; Tokunaga, Tetsu K.
- Zenodo