Pore-scale modelling of carbonate dissolution

Abstract

High resolution micro-CT images of porous rocks provide a very useful starting point to the development of pore-scale models of fluid flow and transport. Following a literature review covering recent results on the applicability of tomographic imaging to study reaction phenomena at the pore and core scales, this thesis presents a pore-scale streamline-based reactive transport model to simulate rock dissolution. The focus is on carbonate dissolution in CO2-saturated fluids.

After injecting CO2-rich fluids into carbonate reservoirs, chemical reactions between the acidic fluid and the host rock are to be expected. Such reactions may cause significant variations in the flow and transport properties of the reservoir, with possible consequences for field development and monitoring. The interplay between flow and reaction exhibits a very rich behaviour that has not yet been fully understood, especially in the case of carbonate rocks, which possess a complex pore structure.

The model is developed within a Lagrangian framework, where the advective displacement employs a novel streamline tracing method which respects the no-flow boundary condition at the pore walls. The method is implemented in the pore-space geometry reconstructed from micro-CT images of sedimentary rocks. Diffusion is incorporated with a random walk and fluid-solid reactions are defined in terms of the diffusive flux of reactants through the grain surfaces.

To validate the model, simulation results are compared against a dynamic imaging experiment where a carbonate sample was flooded with CO2-saturated brine at reservoir conditions. The agreement is very good and a decrease of one order of magnitude in the average dissolution rate, compared to the rate measured in an ideal reactor, is explained in terms of transport limitations arising from the flow field heterogeneity.

The impact of the flow heterogeneity in the reactive transport is illustrated in a series of simulations performed in rocks with different degrees of complexity. It is shown that more heterogeneous rocks, in the sense of flow heterogeneity, may exhibit a decrease of up to two orders of magnitude in the sample-averaged reaction rates, and that the flow rate is also an important factor when studying carbonate dissolution.