Heterogeneity-assisted carbon dioxide storage in marine sediments

Zhenxue Dai, Ye Zhang, Jeffrey Bielicki, Mohammad Amin Amooie, Mingkan Zhang, Changbing Yang, Youqin Zou, William Ampomah, Ting Xiao, Wei Jia, Richard Middleton, Wen Zhang, Youhong Sun, Joachim Moortgat, Mohamad Reza Soltanian, Philip Stauffer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

95 Scopus citations

Abstract

Global climate change is a pressing problem caused by the accumulation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage is a promising component of a portfolio of options to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Meaningful capture and storage requires the permanent isolation of enormous amounts of CO2 away from the atmosphere. We investigate the effectiveness of heterogeneity-induced trapping mechanism, in potential synergy with a self-sealing gravitational trapping mechanism, for secure CO2 storage in marine sediments. We conduct the first comprehensive study on heterogeneous marine sediments with various thicknesses at various ocean depths. Prior studies of gravitational trapping have assumed homogeneous (deep-sea) sediments, but numerous studies suggest reservoir heterogeneity may enhance CO2 trapping. Heterogeneity can deter the upward migration of CO2 and prevent leakage through the seafloor into the seawater. Using geostatistically-based Monte Carlo simulations of CO2 transport in heterogeneous sediment, we show that strong spatial variability in permeability is a dominant physical mechanism for secure CO2 storage in marine sediments below 1.2 km water depth (less than half of the depth needed for the gravitational trapping). We identify thresholds for sediment thickness, mean permeability and porosity, and their relationships to meaningful injection rates. Our results for the U.S. Gulf of Mexico suggest that heterogeneity-assisted trapping has a greater areal extent with more than three times the CO2 storage capacity for secure offshore CO2 storage than with gravitational trapping. These characteristics offer CO2 storage opportunities that are closer to coasts, more accessible, and likely to be less costly.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)876-883
Number of pages8
JournalApplied Energy
Volume225
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2018

Funding

This work is partially funded by Jilin University through a start up project awarded to the first author and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant numbers: 41772253 ]. Additional funding was provided by the US-China Clean Energy Research Center, Advanced Coal Technology Consortium directed by West Virginia University, and the U.S. National Science Foundation Sustainable Energy Pathways Program ( 1230691 ). We appreciate the constructive comments on the MC simulations provided by Rajesh Pawar, Peter Lichtner, and Hari Viswanathan.

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation Sustainable Energy Pathways Program
US-China
Directorate for Geosciences1230691
National Natural Science Foundation of China41772253
Jilin University

    Keywords

    • CO storage
    • Heterogeneity-assisted trapping
    • Marine sediment

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Heterogeneity-assisted carbon dioxide storage in marine sediments'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this