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The Effects of Brine Species on the Formation of Residual Water in a \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\)–Brine System

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Abstract

Geological storage of \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\) in deep saline aquifers is achieved by injecting \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\) into the aquifers and displacing the brine. Although most of the brine is displaced, some residual groundwater remains in the rock pores. We conducted experiments to investigate factors that influence how much of this residual water remains after \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\) is injected. A rock sample was saturated with brines of two different salts. Supercritical \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\) was injected into the samples at aquifer temperature and pressure, and the displaced water and water–gas mixtures were collected and measured. The results show that deionized water drains more completely than either of the two brines, and NaCl brine drains more completely than \(\hbox {CaCl}_{2}\) brine. The ranking of the irreducible water saturation at the end of the experiment is deionized \(\hbox {water}<\hbox {NaCl brine } <\hbox {CaCl}_{2}\) brine. The process of drainage can be divided into three stages according to the drainage flow rates; the Pushing Drainage, Portable Drainage, and Dissolved Drainage stages. This paper proposed a capillary model which is used to interpret the mechanisms that characterize these three stages.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Center for Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology Survey, China Geology Survey Bureau and funded by the Public Welfare Scientific Research, the Ministry of Land and Resources of PRC (Grant No. 201211063-04). This work is also funded in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41272387) and by the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of Central Colleges, China University of Geosciences (Beijing) (Grant No. 2011YYL147). The authors also wish to thank the editors and reviewers for their constructive suggestions for improving the quality of the manuscript.

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  1. School of Water Resources and Environment, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China

    Yi Li & Qingchun Yu

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  1. Yi Li
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  2. Qingchun Yu
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Correspondence to Qingchun Yu.

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Li, Y., Yu, Q. The Effects of Brine Species on the Formation of Residual Water in a \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\)–Brine System. Transp Porous Med 104, 553–564 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-014-0349-9

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