Experimental study of the co-valorization of carbon dioxide storage
through hydrogen production in ultramafic formations
Abstract
With the recent GIEC report about global warming urging humanity to
limit the global temperature increase to 2°C maximum, research on the
geological storage of carbon dioxide appears more important than ever.
However, the injection in geological formations (such as deep saline
aquifers and depleted gas/oil fields) of supercritical CO2, stores it in
the porosity of the host rock raising legitimate concern about the
safety and long-term behavior of such dynamic multiphase hydrosystems.
Additionally, the economic and energetic weight of such storage
complicates its development at the world scale without strong political
incentives. The storage of CO2 in ultramafic formations in some specific
contexts appears, on the contrary, as a very appealing technology since
it involves the safe mineralization of the carbon by precipitation of
carbonates with the major alkaline earth metals (i.e. Mg, Ca…)
leached from the formation itself. Moreover, as these rocks contain high
amounts of ferrous iron, its oxidation by the water co-injected with CO2
produces dihydrogen, which can be economically valuable rendering the
whole process more viable. Large ophiolite formations (Oman, Papua New
Guinea, east coast of Adriatic Sea…) are expected to have a
storage capacity of several billion tons of CO2 and could produce
similar amounts of clean dihydrogen. We present experimental results on
the mineral carbonation of natural cores of serpentinites by the
continuous percolation of carbon-saturated water. We show that the
dimensionless Péclet (relative importance of diffusion and convection
processes), and Damköhler (relative importance of convection and
chemical processes) numbers as well as the initial geometry of the
porosity and permeability control the localization of the silicate
dissolution and the carbonate precipitation in the porous medium. We
also show that the chemical behavior is principally controlled by the
reactivity of calcium-bearing silicates (wollastonite, diopside) and the
precipitation of calcite as well as the initial iron content of the
different phases. Such results are particularly interesting for the
design and the optimization of pilot sites and the development of this
technology at industrial scale.