Abstract
Capillary trapping is considered as one of the safest geologic CO2 storage mechanisms due to its hydrodynamic stability. However, the thermodynamic stability of capillary trapping was questioned by our recent work (Xu in Geophys Res Lett 46(23):13804–13813, 2019). Gravity induces the top bubbles to grow at expense of bottom bubbles through the diffusion of dissolved gas components, that finally may form a gas cap and posing a risk of leakage, even in absence of convection. Here, we improve the gravity-induced ripening model introduced earlier and conduct theoretical and numerical analysis. Four regimes of bubble ripening are identified according to the modified Bond number and initial gas saturation, resulting in different scaling between the equilibrium time and the length scale. Vertical heterogeneity is also shown to have a great impact on the ripening process. When the permeability gradient is downward, the capillary pressure gradient competes with the gravitational gradient and results in a complex gas redistribution behavior. Capillarity dominates in a short time, while gravitational potential determines the global saturation profile in long term. This work provides a new physical perspective in evaluating CO2 sequestration security and has a potential application in other porous systems that gas generated and evolve under strong external fields.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support and funding from National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 12172010, and from CNPC Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development for the project “Key Fluid Mechanisms of CO2-EOR for Gu-Long Shale Oil Development”. We also benefited a lot from helpful discussions with Dr. Sally Benson at Stanford University during the conference AGU2019.
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Feng, Y., Wang, C., Jin, X. et al. Comprehensive Darcy-Scale Analysis of Ripening in Porous Media. Transp Porous Med 144, 301–316 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-022-01794-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-022-01794-4