TY - JOUR
T1 - Droplets evolution during ex situ dissolution technique for geological CO2 sequestration
T2 - Experimental and mathematical modelling
AU - Zendehboudi, Sohrab
AU - Shafiei, Ali
AU - Bahadori, Alireza
AU - Leonenko, Yuri
AU - Chatzis, Ioannis
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank the Mitacs Elevate and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for the financial support of this research. The authors also would like to thank Dr. James Dooley, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, and anonymous reviewers for providing very helpful technical points which improved the quality of the paper.
Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2013/3/1
Y1 - 2013/3/1
N2 - CO2 can flow upward and leak through thief zones due to buoyancy effect during geological sequestration. To tackle this issue, the ex situ dissolution (ESD) concept was introduced aiming at full dissolution of CO2 at the surface, before it is injected into the ground, to increase the storage capacity and lower the risk of leakage. A mathematical model for CO2 droplets evolution in the ESD process is presented, followed by an experimental investigation to verify the proposed model. The developed model accounts for the droplet break-up process and transient mass transfer involved in the ESD. A number of mathematical correlations were developed to compute the average droplet size, break-up frequency, and droplet population in a turbulent dispersion regime. Experimental and mathematical results revealed that a minimum stable CO2 droplet is achievable within a pipeline length of less than 50m if the CO2 volume fraction is in the range of 5-15% and the brine flow rate varies between 0.25 and 2.0Mt/yr. An acceptable agreement between the predicted and experimental droplet size distributions is observed. This study confirms that the ESD can reduce the leakage risk because of the formation of fine CO2 droplets.
AB - CO2 can flow upward and leak through thief zones due to buoyancy effect during geological sequestration. To tackle this issue, the ex situ dissolution (ESD) concept was introduced aiming at full dissolution of CO2 at the surface, before it is injected into the ground, to increase the storage capacity and lower the risk of leakage. A mathematical model for CO2 droplets evolution in the ESD process is presented, followed by an experimental investigation to verify the proposed model. The developed model accounts for the droplet break-up process and transient mass transfer involved in the ESD. A number of mathematical correlations were developed to compute the average droplet size, break-up frequency, and droplet population in a turbulent dispersion regime. Experimental and mathematical results revealed that a minimum stable CO2 droplet is achievable within a pipeline length of less than 50m if the CO2 volume fraction is in the range of 5-15% and the brine flow rate varies between 0.25 and 2.0Mt/yr. An acceptable agreement between the predicted and experimental droplet size distributions is observed. This study confirms that the ESD can reduce the leakage risk because of the formation of fine CO2 droplets.
KW - Break-up
KW - CO sequestration
KW - Droplet size
KW - Ex situ dissolution
KW - Turbulent flow
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijggc.2012.12.004
DO - 10.1016/j.ijggc.2012.12.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84872657322
VL - 13
SP - 201
EP - 214
JO - International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control
JF - International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control
SN - 1750-5836
ER -