Salt precipitation during CO 2 storage—A review

Miri, Rohaldin; Hellevang, Helge

doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2016.05.015

Cited by 162 publications

(144 citation statements)

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“…The displacement of the water leaves pockets of trapped irreducible water in pores and films of water on the grain surfaces which is exposed to constant flowing dry CO 2 [36,1,71]. An extensive evaporation process begins and leads to the development of a dry out front moving into the medium [1,37]. Subsequently, salt precipitates out in the dry out region.…”

Section: Physics Of Salt Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Miri and Hellevang [37] noted that the development of dry-out and level of precipitation are found to be consequences of interaction between several physical mechanisms which are:…”

Section: Physics Of Salt Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The two mechanisms however occur at different times. Little evaporation occurs during displacement and no convective flow during dry-out [37].…”

Section: Physics Of Salt Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Theoretical Study of the Effect of Salt Precipitation on CO2 Injectivity

Shaibu

Sokama‐Neuyam

Ursin

2018

Day 2 Thu, February 08, 2018

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Adequate well injectivity is required to successfully inject large volumes of CO2 through a minimum number of wells. Brine vaporization in the wellbore vicinity has been identified as a major CO2 injectivity impairment mechanism especially in deep saline reservoirs. A bundle-of-tubes model was developed to investigate basic mechanisms of salt precipitation and to quantify injectivity loss induced by precipitated salts during CO2 injection into saline formations. A Berea sandstone rock was reconstructed with a bundle-of-tubes model. A correlation was developed to estimate the solid salt saturation in the pores based on the properties of the aqueous phase. A parameter capable of tracking the development of the dry-out zone was introduced to model the distribution of salt in the pores. A relative injectivity change index was then used to quantify injectivity impairment induced by precipitated salts. A tortuosity factor was incorporated to account for the tortuous path taken by fluids in porous media. A sensitivity study was performed to assess the effects of parameters such as brine salinity, initial permeability, injection flowrate and porosity on injectivity loss. The model can reproduce some experimental results of drying of brine-saturated sandstone cores by supercritical CO2. A sensitivity study of the parameters affecting injectivity show that; (1) salt precipitation occurs in the dry-out zone where most of the irreducible water in the trapped brine has evaporated, (2) increasing brine salinity has adverse effect on injectivity, (3) salt precipitation affects permeability more than porosity and (4) in rocks with high initial permeability, salt precipitation is minimal. These findings are important for a successful CCS project since CO2 injectivity controls essential aspects of storage which are the rate, the quantity and length of time for CO2 injection into a formation.

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Section: Physics Of Salt Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Miri and Hellevang [37] noted that the development of dry-out and level of precipitation are found to be consequences of interaction between several physical mechanisms which are:…”

Section: Physics Of Salt Precipitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Theoretical Study of the Effect of Salt Precipitation on CO2 Injectivity

Shaibu

Sokama‐Neuyam

Ursin

2018

Day 2 Thu, February 08, 2018

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“…Lombard et al [2] classified CO 2 injectivity impairment mechanisms into three main groups: transport effects such as fines mobilization, geochemical effects such as mineral dissolution, and salt precipitation and geomechanical processes. Among these injectivity impairment challenges, salt precipitation effects have attracted the highest attention over the past years [3][4][5][6][7]. The effect of fines mobilization on CO 2 injectivity has not been given its deserved attention, probably because of available evidence of massive injectivity impairment induced by salt precipitation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Miri and Hellevang [3] identified the processes leading to salt precipitation as: (1) immiscible two-phase CO 2 -brine displacement; (2) vaporization of brine into the flowing CO 2 stream; (3) capillary back-flow of brine toward the inlet; (4) diffusion of dissolved salt in the porewater; (5) gravity override of CO 2 ; and (6) salt self-enhancing. While numerical experiments by Roels et al [23] suggested that precipitated salt accumulates far from the wellbore, several research works [6,14,24,25] show that precipitated salt accumulates near the wellbore.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Coupled Effect of Fines Mobilization and Salt Precipitation on CO2 Injectivity

et al. 2017

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Abstract:In terms of storage capacity and containment efficiency, deep saline aquifers are among the best candidates for CO 2 storage. However, salt precipitation in the wellbore vicinity and fines mobilization ensued from in situ mineral dissolution could impair CO 2 injectivity and reduce the quality and capacity of deep saline reservoirs for CO 2 storage. The mechanisms of salt precipitation and its impact on CO 2 injectivity have been studied, but the effects of fines mobilization have not been properly investigated. We conducted core-flood experiments and theoretical studies to investigate the impact of fines mobilization on CO 2 injectivity, the relative contribution of fines mobilization and salt precipitation to injectivity impairment, and the coupled effect of salt precipitation and fines mobilization. We found that, mineral dissolution and transport effects could induce up to about 26% injectivity impairment. The findings also suggest that about 0.3 wt % particle concentration in the pore fluid could induce over twofold injectivity impairment compared to about 10 wt % of total dissolved salt in the formation water. Salt precipitation was also found to compound injectivity impairment induced by fines mobilization. The present study provides important insight, and could serve as a foundation to inspire further experimental and theoretical investigation into the effects of mineral dissolution and fines mobilization in the context of CO 2 injectivity.

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