Abstract
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been identified as an area of
research interest due to its potential for reducing the global
greenhouse effect. CCS typically involves injection of supercritical CO2
into abandoned oil and gas reservoirs or saline aquifers with sufficient
porosity and permeability. CO2 is trapped by a number of mechanisms
which differ in security with storage in carbonate minerals (geological
carbon storage) being the most secure long term mechanism. Consequently,
it is important to understand the behaviour of reactive flows and what
influences the mineralisation process to occur so that the CCS process
can be optimised as a tool for reducing the greenhouse effect. In this
work, we present a novel methodology based on 3D models of connected
pore structures extracted from micro computed tomography (microCT). The
pore geometry is used to build a representative volume in which fluid
flow and mineral precipitation takes place. We numerically solve the
governing equations of coupled advection-diffusion-reaction using Finite
Element Discretisation. The performed simulations describe advection and
diffusion of an injected CO2 brine as well as reaction of this fluid
phase with the pore walls to form carbonate minerals. A series of
different Damköhler (Da) and Péclet (Pe) numbers are employed to
investigate the effect on mineralisation and brine migration of
differing advective, diffusive and reactive strengths in the system. We
complement our microscale model of porous flow with a regional scale
model taking into account geological structures relevant to the
subsurface of the UK Geoenergy Observatories Cheshire Energy Research
Facility Site, UK.