SFB1313 Publication "Rayleigh invariance allows the estimation of effective CO2 fluxes due to convective dissolution into water-filled fractures"

November 28, 2024 /

Authors: Leon Keim and Holger Class | Scientific Journal: ESS Open Archive

New SFB 1313 pubilcation, published in the scientific journal "ESS Open Archive". The work has been developed in the context of SFB 1313 research project C04.

"Rayleigh invariance allows the estimation of effective CO2 fluxes due to convective dissolution into water-filled fractures"

Authors
Abstract

Convective dissolution of CO2 is a well-known mechanism in geological storage of CO2 . It is triggered by gravitational instability which leads to the onset of free convection. The phenomenon is well studied in porous media, such as saline aquifers, and the literature provides substantial evidence that onset times and effective flux rates can be estimated based on a characterization of instabilities that uses the Darcy velocity. This work extends the study of convective dissolution to open water-filled fractures, where non-Darcy regimes govern the induced flow processes. Numerical simulations using a Navier-Stokes model with fluid density dependent on dissolved CO2  concentration were used to compute scenario-specific results for effective CO2  entry rates into an idealized fracture with varying aperture, temperature, and CO2  concentration at the gas water interface. The results were analyzed in terms of dimensionless quantities. They revealed a Rayleigh invariance of the effective CO2  flux after the complete formation of a quasi-stationary velocity profile, i.e. after a certain entry length. Hence, this invariance can be exploited to estimate the effective CO2  entry rates, which can then be used, in perspective, in upscaled models. We have studied convective CO2 dissolution for two different fracture settings; the first one relates to karstification scenarios, where CO2  is the dominant driving force, and were stagnant-water conditions in fractures have not yet received attention to date. The second setting is inspired from geological CO2  storage, where the literature provides only studies on convective CO2  dissolution for porous-media flow with Darcy regimes.

 

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