TY - JOUR
T1 - Geological Carbon Sequestration by Reactive Infiltration Instability
AU - Sun, Yizhuo
AU - Payton, Ryan
AU - Hier-Majumder, Saswata
AU - Kingdon, Andrew
PY - 2020/12/17
Y1 - 2020/12/17
N2 - We study carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) over time scales of 2000 years by implementing a numerical model of reactive infiltration instability caused by reactive porous flow. Our model focuses on the mineralization of CO2 dissolved in the pore water—the geological carbon sequestration phase of a CCS operation—starting 10–100 years after the injection of CO2 in the subsurface. We test the influence of three parameters: porosity, mass fraction of the Ca-rich feldspar mineral anorthite in the solid, and the chemical reaction rate, on the mode of fluid flow and efficiency of CaCO3 precipitation during geological carbon sequestration. We demonstrate that the mode of porous flow switches from propagation of a planar front at low porosities to propagation of channels at porosities exceeding 10%. The channels develop earlier for more porous aquifers. Both high anorthite mass fraction in the solid phase and high reaction rates aid greater amounts of carbonate precipitation, with the reaction rate exerting the stronger influence of the two. Our calculations indicate that an aquifer with dimensions 500 m × 2 km × 2 km can sequester over 350 Mt solid CaCO3 after 2000 years. To precipitate 50 Mt CaCO3 after 2000 years in this aquifer, we suggest selecting a target aquifer with more than 10 wt% of reactive minerals. We recommend that the aquifer porosity, abundance of reactive aluminosilicate minerals such as anorthite, and reaction rates are taken into consideration while selecting future CCS sites.
AB - We study carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) over time scales of 2000 years by implementing a numerical model of reactive infiltration instability caused by reactive porous flow. Our model focuses on the mineralization of CO2 dissolved in the pore water—the geological carbon sequestration phase of a CCS operation—starting 10–100 years after the injection of CO2 in the subsurface. We test the influence of three parameters: porosity, mass fraction of the Ca-rich feldspar mineral anorthite in the solid, and the chemical reaction rate, on the mode of fluid flow and efficiency of CaCO3 precipitation during geological carbon sequestration. We demonstrate that the mode of porous flow switches from propagation of a planar front at low porosities to propagation of channels at porosities exceeding 10%. The channels develop earlier for more porous aquifers. Both high anorthite mass fraction in the solid phase and high reaction rates aid greater amounts of carbonate precipitation, with the reaction rate exerting the stronger influence of the two. Our calculations indicate that an aquifer with dimensions 500 m × 2 km × 2 km can sequester over 350 Mt solid CaCO3 after 2000 years. To precipitate 50 Mt CaCO3 after 2000 years in this aquifer, we suggest selecting a target aquifer with more than 10 wt% of reactive minerals. We recommend that the aquifer porosity, abundance of reactive aluminosilicate minerals such as anorthite, and reaction rates are taken into consideration while selecting future CCS sites.
KW - GCS
KW - CCS
KW - reactive infiltration instability
KW - carbon capture
KW - porous flow
UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2020.533588/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Earth_Science&id=533588
U2 - 10.3389/feart.2020.533588
DO - 10.3389/feart.2020.533588
M3 - Article
SN - 2296-6463
VL - 8
SP - 1
EP - 10
JO - Frontiers in Earth Science
JF - Frontiers in Earth Science
M1 - 533588
ER -