scholarly journals Analysis of gas transport behavior in organic and inorganic nanopores based on a unified apparent gas permeability model

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qi Zhang ◽  
Wen-Dong Wang ◽  
Yilihamu Kade ◽  
Bo-Tao Wang ◽  
Lei Xiong

Abstract Different from the conventional gas reservoirs, gas transport in nanoporous shales is complicated due to multiple transport mechanisms and reservoir characteristics. In this work, we presented a unified apparent gas permeability model for real gas transport in organic and inorganic nanopores, considering real gas effect, organic matter (OM) porosity, Knudsen diffusion, surface diffusion, and stress dependence. Meanwhile, the effects of monolayer and multilayer adsorption on gas transport are included. Then, we validated the model by experimental results. The influences of pore radius, pore pressure, OM porosity, temperature, and stress dependence on gas transport behavior and their contributions to the total apparent gas permeability (AGP) were analyzed. The results show that the adsorption effect causes Kn(OM) > Kn(IM) when the pore pressure is larger than 1 MPa and the pore radius is less than 100 nm. The ratio of the AGP over the intrinsic permeability decreases with an increase in pore radius or pore pressure. For nanopores with a radius of less than 10 nm, the effects of the OM porosity, surface diffusion coefficient, and temperature on gas transport cannot be negligible. Moreover, the surface diffusion almost dominates in nanopores with a radius less than 2 nm under high OM porosity conditions. For the small-radius and low-pressure conditions, gas transport is governed by the Knudsen diffusion in nanopores. This study focuses on revealing gas transport behavior in nanoporous shales.

Fractals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (01) ◽  
pp. 2050017 ◽  
Author(s):  
TAO WU ◽  
SHIFANG WANG

A better comprehension of the behavior of shale gas transport in shale gas reservoirs will aid in predicting shale gas production rates. In this paper, an analytical apparent permeability expression for real gas is derived on the basis of the fractal theory and Fick’s law, with adequate consideration of the effects of Knudsen diffusion, surface diffusion and flexible pore shape. The gas apparent permeability model is found to be a function of microstructural parameters of shale reservoirs, gas property, Langmuir pressure, shale reservoir temperature and pressure. The results show that the apparent permeability increases with the increase of pore area fractal dimension and the maximum effective pore radius and decreases with an increase of the tortuosity fractal dimension; the effects of Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion on the total apparent permeability cannot be ignored under high-temperature and low-pressure circumstances. These findings can contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of gas transport in shale reservoirs.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 1937
Author(s):  
Tao Wu ◽  
Qian Wang ◽  
Shifang Wang

The investigation of gas transport in fractured porous media is essential in most petroleum and chemical engineering. In this paper, an apparent gas permeability model for real gas flow in fractured porous media is derived with adequate consideration of real gas effect, the roughness of fracture surface, and Knudsen diffusion based on the fractal theory. The fractal apparent gas permeability model is obtained to be a function of micro-structural parameters of fractured porous media, relative roughness, the pressure, the temperature, and the properties of gas. The predictions from the apparent gas permeability model based on the fractal theory match well with the published permeability model and experimental data, which verifies the rationality of the present fractal apparent gas permeability model.


2022 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Guo ◽  
Xiaowei Zhang ◽  
Rongze Yu ◽  
Lixia Kang ◽  
Jinliang Gao ◽  
...  

The flow of shale gas in nano scale pores is affected by multiple physical phenomena. At present, the influence of multiple physical phenomena on the transport mechanism of gas in nano-pores is not clear, and a unified mathematical model to describe these multiple physical phenomena is still not available. In this paper, an apparent permeability model was established, after comprehensively considering three gas flow mechanisms in shale matrix organic pores, including viscous slippage Flow, Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion of adsorbed gas, and real gas effect and confinement effect, and at the same time considering the effects of matrix shrinkage, stress sensitivity, adsorption layer thinning, confinement effect and real gas effect on pore radius. The contribution of three flow mechanisms to apparent permeability under different pore pressure and pore size is analyzed. The effects of adsorption layer thinning, stress sensitivity, matrix shrinkage effect, real gas effect and confinement effect on apparent permeability were also systematically analyzed. The results show that the apparent permeability first decreases and then increases with the decrease of pore pressure. With the decrease of pore pressure, matrix shrinkage, Knudsen diffusion, slippage effect and surface diffusion effect increase gradually. These four effects will not only make up for the permeability loss caused by stress sensitivity and adsorption layer, but also significantly increase the permeability. With the decrease of pore radius, the contribution of slippage flow decreases, and the contributions of Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion increase gradually. With the decrease of pore radius and the increase of pore pressure, the influence of real gas effect and confinement effect on permeability increases significantly. Considering real gas and confinement effect, the apparent permeability of pores with radius of 5 nm is increased by 13.2%, and the apparent permeability of pores with radius of 1 nm is increased by 61.3%. The apparent permeability model obtained in this paper can provide a theoretical basis for more accurate measurement of permeability of shale matrix and accurate evaluation of productivity of shale gas horizontal wells.


Fractals ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (08) ◽  
pp. 1950129 ◽  
Author(s):  
BOWEN HU ◽  
J. G. WANG ◽  
ZHONGQIAN LI ◽  
HUIMIN WANG

Previous studies ignore the evolutions of pore microstructure parameters (pore diameter fractal dimension [Formula: see text] and tortuosity fractal dimension [Formula: see text]) but these evolutions may significantly impact the gas transport during gas extraction. In order to investigate these evolutions of fractal dimension properties during gas extraction, following four aspects are studied. Firstly, surface diffusion in adsorbed multilayer is modeled for fractal shale matrix. Our new matrix permeability model considers the slip flow, Knudsen diffusion and surface diffusion. This model is verified by experimental data. Secondly, a new fracture permeability model is proposed based on fractal theory and the coupling of viscous flow and Knudsen diffusion. Thirdly, the multilayer adsorption and these permeability models are introduced into the equations of gas flow and reservoir deformation. Finally, sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the key factors on fractal dimension evolution. The results show that the multilayer adsorption can accurately describe the adsorption properties of real shale reservoir. Shale reservoir deformation and gas desorption govern the evolutions of fractal dimensions. The multilayer adsorption and adsorbed gas porosity [Formula: see text] play an important role in the evolutions of fractal dimensions during gas extraction. The monolayer saturated adsorption volume [Formula: see text] is the most sensitive parameter affecting the evolution of fractal dimensions. Therefore, the effects of gas adsorption on the evolution of fractal dimensions cannot be neglected in shale reservoirs.


SPE Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (02) ◽  
pp. 698-719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Di Chai ◽  
Zhaoqi Fan ◽  
Xiaoli Li

Summary A new unified gas-transport model has been developed to characterize single-component real-gas flow in nanoscale organic and inorganic porous media by modifying the Bravo (2007) model. More specifically, a straight capillary tube is characterized by a conceptual layered model consisting of a viscous-flow zone, a Knudsen-diffusion zone, and a surface-diffusion zone. To specify the contributions of the viscous flow and the Knudsen diffusion to the gas transport, the virtual boundary between the viscous-flow and Knudsen-diffusion zones is first determined using an analytical molecular-kinetics approach. As such, the new unified gas-transport model is derived by integrating the weighted viscous flow and Knudsen diffusion, and coupling surface diffusion. The model is also comprehensively scaled up to the bundles-of-tubes model considering the roughness, rarefaction, and real-gas effect. Nonlinear programming methods have been used to optimize the empirical parameters in the newly proposed gas-transport model. Consequently, the newly proposed gas-transport model yields the most accurate molar fluxes compared with the Bravo (2007) model and four other analytical models. One of the advantages of the new unified gas-transport model is its great flexibility, because the Knudsen number is included as an independent variable, which also endows the newly proposed model with the capability to cover the full-flow regimes. In addition, the apparent permeability has been mathematically derived from the new unified gas-transport model. A series of simulations has been implemented using methane gas. It is found through sensitivity analysis that apparent permeability is strongly dependent on pore size, porosity, and tortuosity, and weakly dependent on the surface-diffusivity coefficient and pore-surface roughness. The increased viscosity can reduce the total molar flux in the inorganic pores up to 66.0% under the typical shale-gas-reservoir conditions. The viscous-flow mechanism cannot be neglected at any pore sizes under reservoir conditions, whereas the Knudsen diffusion is found to be important when pore size is smaller than 2 nm and pressure is less than 35.0 MPa. The contribution of surface diffusion cannot be ignored when the pore size is smaller than 10 nm and the pressure is less than 15.0 MPa.


SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Zizhong Liu ◽  
Hamid Emami-Meybodi

Summary The complex pore structure and storage mechanism of organic-rich ultratight reservoirs make the hydrocarbon transport within these reservoirs complicated and significantly different from conventional oil and gas reservoirs. A substantial fraction of pore volume in the ultratight matrix consists of nanopores in which the notion of viscous flow may become irrelevant. Instead, multiple transport and storage mechanisms should be considered to model fluid transport within the shale matrix, including molecular diffusion, Knudsen diffusion, surface diffusion, and sorption. This paper presents a diffusion-based semianalytical model for a single-component gas transport within an infinite-actingorganic-rich ultratight matrix. The model treats free and sorbed gas as two phases coexisting in nanopores. The overall mass conservation equation for both phases is transformed into one governing equation solely on the basis of the concentration (density) of the free phase. As a result, the partial differential equation (PDE) governing the overall mass transport carries two newly defined nonlinear terms; namely, effective diffusion coefficient, De, and capacity factor, Φ. The De term accounts for the molecular, Knudsen, and surface diffusion coefficients, and the Φ term considers the mass exchange between free and sorbed phases under sorption equilibrium condition. Furthermore, the ratio of De/Φ is recognized as an apparent diffusion coefficient Da, which is a function of free phase concentration. The nonlinear PDE is solved by applying a piecewise-constant-coefficient technique that divides the domain under consideration into an arbitrary number of subdomains. Each subdomain is assigned with a constant Da. The diffusion-based model is validated against numerical simulation. The model is then used to investigate the impact of surface and Knudsen diffusion coefficients, porosity, and adsorption capacity on gas transport within the ultratight formation. Further, the model is used to study gas transport and production from the Barnett, Marcellus, and New Albany shales. The results show that surface diffusion significantly contributes to gas production in shales with large values of surface diffusion coefficient and adsorption capacity and small values of Knudsen diffusion coefficient and total porosity. Thus, neglecting surface diffusion in organic-rich shales may result in the underestimation of gas production.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6323
Author(s):  
Xiaoping Li ◽  
Shudong Liu ◽  
Ji Li ◽  
Xiaohua Tan ◽  
Yilong Li ◽  
...  

Apparent gas permeability (AGP) is a significantly important parameter for productivity prediction and reservoir simulation. However, the influence of multiscale effect and irreducible water distribution on gas transport is neglected in most of the existing AGP models, which will overestimate gas transport capacity. Therefore, an AGP model coupling multiple mechanisms is established to investigate gas transport in multiscale shale matrix. First, AGP models of organic matrix (ORM) and inorganic matrix (IOM) have been developed respectively, and the AGP model for shale matrix is derived by coupling AGP models for two types of matrix. Multiple effects such as real gas effect, multiscale effect, porous deformation, irreducible water saturation and gas ab-/de-sorption are considered in the proposed model. Second, sensitive analysis indicates that pore size, pressure, porous deformation and irreducible water have significant impact on AGP. Finally, effective pore size distribution (PSD) and AGP under different water saturation of Balic shale sample are obtained based on proposed AGP model. Under comprehensive impact of multiple mechanisms, AGP of shale matrix exhibits shape of approximate “V” as pressure decrease. The presence of irreducible water leads to decrease of AGP. At low water saturation, irreducible water occupies small inorganic pores preferentially, and AGP decreases with small amplitude. The proposed model considers the impact of multiple mechanisms comprehensively, which is more suitable to the actual shale reservoir.


2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (51) ◽  
pp. 23481-23489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyu Wang ◽  
Shouceng Tian ◽  
Gensheng Li ◽  
Panpan Zhang

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zizhong Liu ◽  
Hamid Emami-Meybodi

Abstract This paper presents a continuum-scale diffusion-based model informed by pore-scale data for gas transport in organic nanoporous media. A mass transfer and adsorption model is developed by considering multiple transport and storage mechanisms, including bulk diffusion and Knudsen diffusion for free phase, surface diffusion for sorbed phase, and multilayer adsorption. The continuum-scale diffusion-based governing equation is developed solely based on free phase concentration for the overall mass conservation of free and sorbed phases, carrying a newly-defined effective diffusion coefficient and a capacity factor to account for multilayer adsorption. Diffusion of free and sorbed phases is coupled through the pore-scale simplified local density method based on the modified Peng-Robinson equation of state for confinement effects. The model is first utilized to analyze pore-scale adsorption data from the krypton (Kr) gas adsorption experiment on graphite. Then we implement the model to conduct sensitivity analysis for the effects of pore size on gas transport for Kr-graphite and methane-coal systems. The model is finally used to study Kr diffusion profiles through a coal matrix obtained through X-ray micro-CT imaging. The results show that the sorbed phase occupies most of the pore space in organic nanoporous media due to multilayer adsorption, and surface diffusion contributes significantly to the total mass flux. Therefore, neglecting the volume of sorbed phase and surface diffusion in organic nanoporous rocks may result in considerable errors. Furthermore, the results reveal that implementing a Langmuir-based model may be erroneous for an organic-rich reservoir with nanopores during the early depletion period when the reservoir pressure is high.


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