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Direct Pore-Scale Modelling Of Dissolution And Trapping Of Supercritical CO2 In Reservoir Brine
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, ECMOR XVI - 16th European Conference on the Mathematics of Oil Recovery, Sep 2018, Volume 2018, p.1 - 12
Abstract
Dissolution trapping is an important mechanism for the long term security of geological CO2 capture and storage in saline aquifers. When modelling this process, dissolution of CO2 in the surrounding brine is often assumed to be instantaneous with equilibrium phase partitioning. However, recent experiment in sandstone core samples have shown the importance of pore-scale concentration gradient. Therefore, investigating and upscaling CO2 dissolution at the pore-scale is critical to better constrain macro-scale models.
In this work, we present a novel compressible two-phase multicomponent pore-scale model based on Direct Numerical Simulation of the Navier-Stokes equations using the Volume-Of-Fluid method. Mass transfer across fluid interfaces is accounted for using the Continuous Species Transfer method and the resulting phase change is computed and injected within the phase distribution equation. The model is validated by comparison with analytical solutions of simple set-ups. Then, the approach is used to simulate and upscale CO2 gas dissolution and trapping into the surrounding reservoir brine in realistic 2D porous media.