Experimental and modeling investigation of CO2 flow and transport in a coupled domain of porous media and free flow

A solid understanding of the transport mechanisms of gaseous CO2 near the land surface is necessary for developing reliable monitoring techniques and predictive models for possible CO2 leakage from deep underground storage. The objective of this work has been to develop an experimental method along with a simulation model for gaseous CO2 flow and transport in a system including both the porous media and the free air space above it. The experimental system consisted of a two-dimensional bench scale rectangular sandbox containing homogenous sand with an open space of still air above it. Gaseous CO2 was injected in different modes and the CO2 breakthrough was measured on specified ports in the system by using CO2 concentration sensors. A numerical model combining the gas flow in the porous medium and the free flow region was developed and used to model the experimental data. In this quest, the Discontinuous One-Domain approach was selected for modeling transport between the free flow and porous regions. The observed and simulated CO2 breakthrough curves both in the dried sand and in the free flow matched very well in the case of uniform injection and satisfactorily even in the case of point injection. Consequently, it seems that the model reasonably matches the observed data in the cases where the boundary condition is well defined. In summary, our results show that the developed experimental setup provides capability to study gaseous CO2 flow and transport in a coupled porous medium - free flow system and that our modeling approach is able to predict the flow and transport in this system with good accuracy. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.