Impacts of mineralogical compositions on different trapping mechanisms during long-term CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers

Deep saline aquifers in sedimentary basins are considered to have the greatest potential for CO2 geological storage in order to reduce carbon emissions. CO2 injected into a saline sandstone aquifer tends to migrate upwards toward the caprock because the density of the supercritical CO2 phase is lower than that of formation water. The accumulated CO2 in the upper portions of the reservoir gradually dissolves into brine, lowers pH and changes the aqueous complexation, whereby induces mineral alteration. In turn, the mineralogical composition could impose significant effects on the evolution of solution, further on the mineralized CO2. The high density of aqueous phase will then move downward due to gravity, give rise to “convective mixing,” which facilitate the transformation of CO2 from the supercritical phase to the aqueous phase and then to the solid phase. In order to determine the impacts of mineralogical compositions on trapping amounts in different mechanisms for CO2 geological storage, a 2D radial model was developed. The mineralogical composition for the base case was taken from a deep saline formation of the Ordos Basin, China. Three additional models with varying mineralogical compositions were carried out. Results indicate that the mineralogical composition had very obvious effects on different CO2 trapping mechanisms. Specific to our cases, the dissolution of chlorite provided Mg2+ and Fe2+ for the formation of secondary carbonate minerals (ankerite, siderite and magnesite). When chlorite was absent in the saline aquifer, the dominant secondary carbon sequestration mineral was dawsonite, and the amount of CO2 mineral trapping increased with an increase in the concentration of chlorite. After 3000 years, 69.08, 76.93, 83.52 and 87.24 % of the injected CO2 can be trapped in the solid (mineral) phase, 16.05, 11.86, 8.82 and 6.99 % in the aqueous phase, and 14.87, 11.21, 7.66 and 5.77 % in the gas phase for Case 1 through 4, respectively.