A New Approach To Improve The Assessments of CO2 Geo-Sequestration Capacity of Clay Minerals

CO2 geological storage (CCS)isconsidered as the most promising technique to reduce atmospheric CO2emissions. However, due to the density variation between the injected supercritical CO2 and the formation water,CO2 tends to move vertically toward the air. This vertical CO2 leakage can be prevented by four trapping mechanisms (i.e. structural trapping,capillary trapping, solubility trapping, and mineral trapping). The capacities of structural and residual trapping are highly affected by rock wettability. Clay wettability is one of the crucial parametersin evaluation of CO2 geo-sequestration. However, the literature data show that there are many uncertainties associated with experimental measurements. One of these uncertainties is the influenceof the effect of gas density on the clay mineral wettability. Thus, here, we compared the wettability of a clay mineral (i.e. illite) of three different gas densities scenarios (i.e. low (Helium), moderate (Nitrogen), and high (CO2) gas densities). To do so, we measured the advancing and receding contact angle (i.e. wettability) of illite for CO2/water, nitrogen/water, and Helium/water systems at a constant (333 K) and four different pressures (5, 10, 15, and 20 MPa). The brine composition used was 4 wt% NaCl, 4 wt% CaCl2, 1 wt% MgCl2 and 1 wt% KCl, for all gas density scenarios. The results indicate that gas density has a significant effect on the clay mineral wettability and that both advancing and receding contact angles increase with an increase in gas density. The results show that a higher density gas scenario has a higher contact angle of illite, measured at the same temperature and pressure. For instance, the advancing contact angle of illite at 333 K and 20 MPa was 65° for the CO2/water system, 53° for the nitrogen/water system, and 50° for Helium/water Helium/water system. Thus, we conclude that the gas density affects the Clay wettability measurement and that the higher gas density leads to a higher contact angle measurements (i.e. a more CO2-wet system) of the clay and thus reduces the estimated CO2 geo-sequestration capacity and containment security.