An experiment-based assessment of the feasibility of the CO2 geological storage in unexploited coal beds in northern Spain

The storage of CO2 in unused coal mines is a viable option for reducing emissions of CO2, whose accumulation in the atmosphere is one of the main contributors to global warming. Understanding CO2 behaviour and storage capacity of the coal is an important first step before injecting the CO2. We used experimental equipment to extract coal from a mine and to obtain a representative sample of both its internal structure (in terms of cleats, macropores, mesopores and micropores) and occluded gases. Storage capacity was studied in terms of variations in gas pressure. The adsorption isotherm was experimentally obtained applying a procedure specifically designed to avoid altering the coal. An unused coal bed was selected to determine how much CO2 it could adsorb and to study the feasibility of storing power plant CO2 in this kind of mine.