Laboratory measurements of large-scale carbon sequestration flows in saline reservoirs
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
Brine saturated with CO{sub 2} is slightly denser than the original brine causing it to sink to the bottom of a saline reservoir where the CO{sub 2} is safely sequestered. However, the buoyancy of pure CO{sub 2} relative to brine drives it to the top of the reservoir where it collects underneath the cap rock as a separate phase of supercritical fluid. Without additional processes to mix the brine and CO{sub 2}, diffusion in this geometry is slow and would require an unacceptably long time to consume the pure CO{sub 2}. However, gravity and diffusion-driven convective instabilities have been hypothesized that generate enhanced CO{sub 2}-brine mixing promoting dissolution of CO{sub 2} into the brine on time scale of a hundred years. These flows involve a class of hydrodynamic problems that are notoriously difficult to simulate; the simultaneous flow of mUltiple fluids (CO{sub 2} and brine) in porous media (rock or sediment). The hope for direct experimental confirmation of simulations is dim due to the difficulty of obtaining high resolution data from the subsurface and the high pressures ({approx}100 bar), long length scales ({approx}100 meters), and long time scales ({approx}100 years) that are characteristic of these flows. We have performed imaging and mass transfer measurements in similitude-scaled laboratory experiments that provide benchmarks to test reservoir simulation codes and enhance their predictive power.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1011483
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-10-03071; LA-UR-10-3071; TRN: US201109%%459
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Carbon Capture and Sequestration 2010 ; May 10, 2010 ; Pittsburgh, PA
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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