The influence of water saturation on permeability of low-permeability sandstone

Sequestration of CO2 in a suitable geological repository is a function of permeability, which is affected by water saturation, pressure and temperature. In this study, breakthrough experiments using CO2 were conducted on three sandstone cores, using varying degrees of water saturation at 40 degrees C and pressures of >8 MPa. Results show that absolute CO2 permeability decreases significantly with increasing temperature and pressure, and increasing the degree of water saturation in the cores leads to an increase in gas breakthrough pressure. Also, higher water saturation and breakthrough pressure resulted in a decrease in the scCO(2) effective permeability.(C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.