TY - JOUR
T1 - Reactive alteration of a Mt. Simon Sandstone due to CO2-rich brine displacement
AU - Dávila, Gabriela
AU - Dalton, Laura
AU - Crandall, Dustin M.
AU - Garing, Charlotte
AU - Werth, Charles J.
AU - Druhan, Jennifer L.
N1 - Funding Information:
Thanks are due to Dr. Sally Benson for the use of the flow through percolation apparatus at the Benson Laboratory at Stanford University. The study would not be possible without the help of Dr. Christopher Zahasky and Dana Thomas from Stanford University, and Jared Freiburg from the Illinois State Geological Survey for their assistance in the experimental setup. Also, thanks to Sarah Brown, Roger Lapeer, and Jonathan Moore from NETL; Gideon Bartov, Prof. Craig Lundstrom, Jia Wang, Timothy Prunkard, Darold Marrow and Michael Harland from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Dr. Stephen P. Altaner (University of Illinois Urbana Champaign), Dr. David L. Bish (Indiana University Bloomington) and Natàlia Moreno (IDAEA-CSIC) provided critical support in the XRD analyses and interpretation. We also wish to thank Benjamin Tutolo (University of Calgary) and the rest of the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that have improved the quality of the paper. This work was supported as part of the Center for Geologic Storage of CO 2 , and Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , Office of Science , Basic Energy Sciences (BES) , under Award # DE-SC0C12504 . Core samples for this project were provided, in part, by work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under award number DE-FC26-05NT42588 and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Appendix A
Funding Information:
Thanks are due to Dr. Sally Benson for the use of the flow through percolation apparatus at the Benson Laboratory at Stanford University. The study would not be possible without the help of Dr. Christopher Zahasky and Dana Thomas from Stanford University, and Jared Freiburg from the Illinois State Geological Survey for their assistance in the experimental setup. Also, thanks to Sarah Brown, Roger Lapeer, and Jonathan Moore from NETL; Gideon Bartov, Prof. Craig Lundstrom, Jia Wang, Timothy Prunkard, Darold Marrow and Michael Harland from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Dr. Stephen P. Altaner (University of Illinois Urbana Champaign), Dr. David L. Bish (Indiana University Bloomington) and Nat?lia Moreno (IDAEA-CSIC) provided critical support in the XRD analyses and interpretation. We also wish to thank Benjamin Tutolo (University of Calgary) and the rest of the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that have improved the quality of the paper. This work was supported as part of the Center for Geologic Storage of CO2, and Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under Award # DE-SC0C12504. Core samples for this project were provided, in part, by work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under award number DE-FC26-05NT42588 and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/2/15
Y1 - 2020/2/15
N2 - We report a series of acidified brine flow-through experiments designed to quantify the coupled alteration of geochemical, structural and fluid transport properties of a Mt. Simon sandstone core recovered at a depth of 2110.5 m as part of the Illinois Basin Decatur Project (IBDP). Flow-through experiments were completed at representative in-situ conditions to isolate the stages of initial CO2 injection: first, a single-phase (CO2–saturated brine, Stage 1) followed by a second multi-phase (CO2–saturated brine and supercritical CO2, Stage 2) experiment. During both stages, effluent major and trace cation concentrations were tracked through time. Two imaging methods were employed to analyze the structural alterations of the rock core induced by the percolation of CO2-saturated brine and supercritical CO2: (1) scanning electron microscopy-petrography before Stage 1 and after Stage 2 and (2) computed tomography (CT) scans before and after Stage 2. The time series of Stage 1 effluent solutes were used to constrain a reactive transport simulation of the system. Modeling results suggest the evolution of the solute composition is a result of coupled dissolution of K-feldspar, calcite, illite and pyrite, and precipitation of montmorillonite, mesolite, alunite, diaspore, goethite and muscovite. The model predicted a net opening of pore space and associated increased permeability at the inlet. However, across the whole core, an overall decrease in permeability of approximately 23% ± 0.01 after Stage 1 was determined experimentally. CT analysis confirmed a corresponding decrease in porosity. A comparable permeability decrease was directly measured during Stage 2, concurrent with a decrease in the volume of macro-pores based on multiple CT-resolution methods. In total, this coupled approach demonstrates that geochemical alterations exert a first order control on the evolution of fluid transport properties through time at the earliest stages of in-situ CO2 injection and suggest that chemical dynamics ultimately influence both the magnitude and timing of alterations to the physical integrity of Mt. Simon reservoir over these timescales.
AB - We report a series of acidified brine flow-through experiments designed to quantify the coupled alteration of geochemical, structural and fluid transport properties of a Mt. Simon sandstone core recovered at a depth of 2110.5 m as part of the Illinois Basin Decatur Project (IBDP). Flow-through experiments were completed at representative in-situ conditions to isolate the stages of initial CO2 injection: first, a single-phase (CO2–saturated brine, Stage 1) followed by a second multi-phase (CO2–saturated brine and supercritical CO2, Stage 2) experiment. During both stages, effluent major and trace cation concentrations were tracked through time. Two imaging methods were employed to analyze the structural alterations of the rock core induced by the percolation of CO2-saturated brine and supercritical CO2: (1) scanning electron microscopy-petrography before Stage 1 and after Stage 2 and (2) computed tomography (CT) scans before and after Stage 2. The time series of Stage 1 effluent solutes were used to constrain a reactive transport simulation of the system. Modeling results suggest the evolution of the solute composition is a result of coupled dissolution of K-feldspar, calcite, illite and pyrite, and precipitation of montmorillonite, mesolite, alunite, diaspore, goethite and muscovite. The model predicted a net opening of pore space and associated increased permeability at the inlet. However, across the whole core, an overall decrease in permeability of approximately 23% ± 0.01 after Stage 1 was determined experimentally. CT analysis confirmed a corresponding decrease in porosity. A comparable permeability decrease was directly measured during Stage 2, concurrent with a decrease in the volume of macro-pores based on multiple CT-resolution methods. In total, this coupled approach demonstrates that geochemical alterations exert a first order control on the evolution of fluid transport properties through time at the earliest stages of in-situ CO2 injection and suggest that chemical dynamics ultimately influence both the magnitude and timing of alterations to the physical integrity of Mt. Simon reservoir over these timescales.
KW - CO sequestration
KW - Mt. Simon sandstone
KW - Porosity & permeability evolution
KW - Reactive transport modeling
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U2 - 10.1016/j.gca.2019.12.015
DO - 10.1016/j.gca.2019.12.015
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85077755811
VL - 271
SP - 227
EP - 247
JO - Geochmica et Cosmochimica Acta
JF - Geochmica et Cosmochimica Acta
SN - 0016-7037
ER -