Experimental Study on the Interplay between Different Brine Types/Concentrations and CO2 Injectivity for Effective CO2 Storage in Deep Saline Aquifers

Salt precipitation during CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers can have severe consequences on injectivity during carbon storage. Extensive studies have been carried out on CO2 solubility with individual or mixed salt solutions; however, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no substantial study to consider pressure decay rate as a function of CO2 solubility in brine, and the range of brine concentration for effective CO2 storage. This study presents an experimental core flooding of the Bentheimer sandstone sample under simulated reservoir conditions to examine the effect of four different types of brine at a various ranges of salt concentration (5 to 25 wt.%) on CO2 storage. Results indicate that porosity and permeability reduction, as well as salt precipitation, is higher in divalent brines. It is also found that, at 10 to 20 wt.% brine concentrations in both monovalent and divalent brines, a substantial volume of CO2 is sequestered, which indicates the optimum concentration ranges for storage purposes. Hence, the magnitude of CO2 injectivity impairment depends on both the concentration and type of salt species. The findings from this study are directly relevant to CO2 sequestration in deep saline aquifers as well as screening criteria for carbon storage with enhanced gas and oil recovery processes.

Climate pathways behind phytoplankton-induced atmospheric warming

We investigate the ways in which marine biologically mediated heating increases the surface atmospheric temperature. While the effects of phytoplankton light absorption on the ocean have gained attention over the past years, the impact of this biogeophysical mechanism on the atmosphere is still unclear. Phytoplankton light absorption warms the surface of the ocean, which in turn affects the air–sea heat and CO2 exchanges. However, the contribution of air–sea heat versus CO2 fluxes in the phytoplankton-induced atmospheric warming has not been yet determined. Different so-called climate pathways are involved. We distinguish heat exchange, CO2 exchange, dissolved CO2, solubility of CO2 and sea-ice-covered area. To shed more light on this subject, we employ the EcoGEnIE Earth system model that includes a new light penetration scheme and isolate the effects of individual fluxes. Our results indicate that phytoplankton-induced changes in air–sea CO2 exchange warm the atmosphere by 0.71 ∘C due to higher greenhouse gas concentrations. The phytoplankton-induced changes in air–sea heat exchange cool the atmosphere by 0.02 ∘C due to a larger amount of outgoing longwave radiation. Overall, the enhanced air–sea CO2 exchange due to phytoplankton light absorption is the main driver in the biologically induced atmospheric heating.

ASCAPE: A Flexible and Efficient Analytical Tool to Evaluate Aquifer Storage Capacity for CO2 Sequestration

In recent years, carbon neutrality has emerged as an important social and political focus globally, where carbon sequestration plays a key role. The present work is aimed at introducing ASCAPE (Aquifer Storage CAPacity Evaluation tool), a fast and flexible tool useful in case of CO2 aquifer sequestration to preliminarily evaluate the required storage capacity as a function of the maximum allowable pressure increment. ASCAPE is based on the volumetric method included in SPE "Guidelines for Applications of the CO2 Storage Resources Management System" (SPE, 2020) for aquifer sequestration. The analytical formula was integrated to include additional physical phenomena as CO2 solubility in water, pressure control through water production, effect of gas pools connected to aquifer. The tool, implemented in Excel/VBA environment, allows to easily obtain a theoretical Pressure increment vs. Aquifer Volume curve useful to estimate the required aquifer volume to store a given quantity of CO2. ASCAPE results were validated comparing to a simplified 3D model simulated by a compositional commercial dynamic simulator. The validation showed a very good alignment with the 3D dynamic simulation results under several conditions. Many tests were performed with and without the CO2 solubility model, demonstrating that this phenomenon acts as pressure increment reducer. The original volumetric model can be therefore considered slightly conservative, since it neglects this physical contribution, which allowed to improve the reliability of the proposed analytical model. The proposed methodology is a general-purpose application being not related to a specified candidate and, therefore, it can be tailored on the specific scenario to be evaluated. ASCAPE was developed for preliminary screening of CO2 sequestration concepts in greenfield development areas, where the absence of brown or exhausted fields makes the storage in aquifer the only viable solution. Different aquifers were compared under certain assumptions of carbon to be stored with and without water production, allowing a preliminary evaluation that will be used to rank the concepts in terms of technical/economic feasibility.

Measurement and Thermodynamic Modeling for CO2 Solubility in the N-(2-Hydroxyethyl) Piperazine + Water System

Amine scrubbing is the most important technique for capturing CO2. The cyclic diamine N-(2-Hydroxyethyl)-piperazine (HEPZ), a derivative of piperazine, with good mutual solubility in aqueous solution, a low melting point, and a high boiling point, has the potential to replace PZ as an activator added in the mixed amine system to capture CO2. In this study, the solubility of CO2 in aqueous HEPZ solutions was determined for three HEPZ concentrations and four temperatures. The VLE data for HEPZ-H2O were obtained using a gas–liquid double circulation kettle at pressure 30–100 kPa, and the thermodynamic model for the HEPZ-H2O-CO2 system was built in Aspen Plus based on the electrolytic non-random two-liquid (ENRTL) activity model. The physical parameters for HEPZ and the interaction parameters for ENRTL, along with reaction constants of carbamate reactions, were regressed. Using the thermodynamic model, the CO2 cyclic capacity, speciation with loading, and heat of reaction for the CO2 capture system by the aqueous HEPZ solution are predicted and analyzed.

Measurement of Solubility of CO2 in NaCl, CaCl2, MgCl2 and MgCl2 + CaCl2 Brines at Temperatures from 298 to 373 K and Pressures up to 20 MPa Using the Potentiometric Titration Method

Understanding the carbon dioxide (CO2) solubility in formation brines is of great importance to several industrial applications, including CO2 sequestration and some CO2 capture technologies, as well as CO2-based enhanced hydrocarbon recovery methods. Despite years of study, there are few literature data on CO2 solubility for the low salinity range. Thus, in this study, the solubility of CO2 in distilled water and aqueous ionic solutions of NaCl, MgCl2, CaCl2 and MgCl2 + CaCl2 were obtained in a low salinity range (0–15,000 ppm) at temperatures from 298–373 K and pressures up to 20 MPa using an accurate and unconventional method called potentiometric titration. An experimental data set of 553 data points was collected using this method. The results of the experiments demonstrate that increasing pressure increases the solubility of CO2 in various brines, whereas increasing temperature and salinity reduces the solubility. The role of different ions in changing the solubility is elaborated through a detailed discussion on the salting-out effect of different ionic solutions. To verify the experimental results of this research, the solubility points obtained by the potentiometric titration method were compared to some of the well-established experimental and analytical data from the literature and a very good agreement with those was obtained.