Carbon capture and storage describes the process of injecting carbon dioxide from industrial sources into underground geological reservoirs, theoretically for thousands of years. Researchers used supercomputers to understand how carbon dioxide storage works at the level of micrometer-wide pores in rock. They found that two factors greatly impact the amount of carbon dioxide that can be stored: wettability and injection rate.

One of the removal methods scientists are exploring is known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). In carbon capture and storage, CO₂ is captured from industrial sources and injected into deep geological reservoirs underground, theoretically for thousands of years, in much the way water is stored in aquifers.

Sahar Bakhshian, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology, recently used supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to fundamentally understand how CO₂ storage works at the level of micrometer-wide pores in the rock, and to determine the characteristics and factors that can help optimize how much CO₂ can be stored.

Writing in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control in December 2021, she explored the trapping efficiency of CO₂ through dissolving the gas into the resident brine in saline aquifers.

«We tried different scenarios — using different injection rates and fluid-rock properties — to determine how the properties affect what percentage of injected CO₂ can ideally be trapped by the dissolution mechanism,» she explained.

She found that two factors greatly impacted the amount of CO₂ that could be stored in the spaces within the rocks: wettability (or how well CO₂ molecules stick to the surface of the rock); and injection rate (the speed at which supercritical CO₂ is pushed into the reservoir).

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center. Original written by Aaron Dubrow. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.