Brine/CO2 Interfacial Properties and Effects on CO2 Storage in Deep Saline Aquifers
Abstract
It has been long recognized that interfacial interactions (interfacial tension,
wettability, capillarity and interfacial mass transfer) govern fluid distribution and
behaviour in porous media. Therefore the interfacial interactions between CO2,
brine and reservoir oil and/or gas have an important influence on the effectiveness of any
CO2 storage operation. There is a lack of experimental data related to
interfacial properties for all the geological storage options (oil & gas
reservoirs, coalbeds, deep saline aquifers). In the case of deep saline aquifers, there is
a gap in data and knowledge of brine-CO2 interfacial properties at storage
conditions. More specifically, experimental interfacial tension values and experimental
tests in porous media are necessary to better understand the wettability evolution as a
function of thermodynamic conditions and it’s effects on fluid flow in the porous media.
In this paper, a complete set of experimental values of brine-CO2 Interfaciale
Tension (IFT) at pressure, temperature and salt concentration conditions representative of
those of a CO2 storage operation. A correlation is derived from experimental
data published in a companion paper [Chalbaud C., Robin M., Lombard J.-M., Egermann P.,
Bertin H. (2009) Interfacial Tension Measurements and Wettability Evaluation for
Geological CO2 Storage, Adv. Water Resour. 32, 1, 1-109] to model IFT values.
This paper pays particular attention to coreflooding experiments showing that the
CO2 partially wets the surface in a Intermediate-Wet (IW) or Oil-Wet (OW)
limestone rock. This wetting behavior of CO2 is coherent with observations at
the pore scale in glass micromodels and presents a negative impact on the storage capacity
of a given site.
Domains
Physics [physics]
Origin : Publication funded by an institution
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