Numerical studies of long-term wettability alteration effects in CO$_2$ storage applications

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to analyze how wettability changes over time affect CO₂ storage in porous media, revealing impacts on containment and storage efficiency in aquifer-caprock systems.

Contribution

It introduces a two-phase two-component flow model with time-dependent wettability alteration to evaluate long-term effects in CO₂ storage.

Findings

Wettability alteration can lead to loss of containment in caprock.

Wettability alteration slows CO₂ front migration in aquifers.

Wettability alteration enhances storage efficiency by decreasing capillary entry pressure.

Abstract

The wettability of the rock surface in porous media has an effect on the constitutive saturation functions that govern capillary pressure and relative permeability. The term wettability alteration refers to the change of this property over time by processes such as CO$_2$ interactions with the rock. In this work, we perform numerical simulations considering a two-phase two-component flow model including time-dependent wettability alteration in a two-dimensional aquifer-caprock system using the open porous media framework. Particularly, we study the spatial distribution over time of injected CO$_2$ into the aquifer neglecting and including wettability alteration effects. The numerical simulations show that wettability alteration on the caprock results in a loss of containment; however, the CO$_2$ front into the caprock advances very slow since the unexposed caprock along the vertical migration path also needs to be changed by the slow wettability alteration process. The simulations also show that wettability alteration on the aquifer results in an enhancement of storage efficiency; this since the CO$_2$ front migrates more slowly and the capillary entry pressure decreases after wettability alteration.