The Influence of Buoyancy and Heterogeneity on CO₂ Saturation in Porous Media at Reservoir Conditions

Abstract:

CO₂/water displacement process in porous media under conditions of CO₂ geological storage was observed by using X-ray CT. The porous media was a packed bed filled with glass beads. The size of the glass beads in the packed bed is 0.2mm in diameter and the flow rates were adjusted by the fractional CO₂ flow rates from 1.2 to 3.6 ml/min. The porosity and CO₂ saturation were measured during the packed bed flooding experiments under conditions of two-phase of CO₂ and brine (P ~ 8.0 MPa and T = 40°C). The observation results show that the CO₂ displacement efficiency is strongly affected by the heterogeneity of the packed bed. However, it is the buoyancy that plays a key role on governing the CO₂ saturation distribution, which was observed from the experiments under variant of fractional flow rates. The results obtained from this study, especially the CO₂ saturation distribution, provided informations on further investigating the mechanism of the movement and immobilization of CO₂ plumes for CO₂ geological storage.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 962-965)
• Pages: 1641-1644
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.962-965.1641
• Online since: June 2014
• Authors: Zi Jian Shen, Yu Liu*, Yong Chen Song
• Keywords: Buoyancy, Heterogeneity, Porous Media, Two-Phase Flow, X-Ray CT Scan

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