After the industrial revolution in the 1750s, a steep increase by almost 30 percent in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gasses concentrations has occurred. Of the viable strategies outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for atmospheric emission reduction strategies and technologies, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) holds an enormous promise with the potentials to have significant impacts on atmospheric CO2 reduction.

Among various storage options in CCS strategy, depleted oil and gas reservoirs are excellent candidates as type of geological options of storage of CO2 due to the availability of reservoir data and well characteristics from the hydrocarbon production period. Predicting the behaviour of CO2-brine in the complex heterogeneous porous structure of reservoir rocks as well as the interaction between these fluids with minerals in rocks are important for designing and managing CO2 storage sites.

To increase the effectiveness of the underground CO2 sequestration, the multiphase-flow and its relevant mechanisms that change the distribution and concentration of the underground CO2 must be assessed. To date, CO2 geo-sequestration as a complex multiphase fluid flow in heterogeneous rock systems has not yet been given enough attention due to various reasons including lack of high quality experimental data, coupled fluid-fluid-rock interaction that is made even more complex due to rock heterogeneity, difficulty of in-situ experimentation and acquisition of usable data etc.

The focus of this research is directed towards understanding the role of rock heterogeneity on the safety and capacity of CO2 geo-sequestration at the pore and core scales. The research topic investigated in my PhD program combines experimental work, 3D and 4D imaging and image analysis of geo-sequestration of CO2 simulated in the lab. I will present the analysis and interpretation of experimental data obtain via x-ray micro-CT and will show how these observations correlate with rock morphology.

Join the Zoom meeting
Meeting ID: 609 498 0500
Passcode: 7Du E1Z