Investigation of porosity, permeability and anisotropy effects on ‎solubility and onset of convection in CO2 storage in aquifer

Development of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies in saline aquifers is a tool to reduce environmental effects of CO2 emissions and climate change. Dissolution of CO2 in water provides an option for storage in saline aquifers. When CO2 dissolves in the water, the density of the solution increases. Then it may cause natural convection which in turn, increases the rate of dissolution and safety of the storage. In this paper, dissolution process and storage of CO2 in saline aquifers is studied. Here, the main purpose is to investigate the effect of porosity and permeability and anisotropicity of reservoir rock on dissolution process, onset of natural convection, time of maximum Sherwood number. To this end, numerical simulation of convective mixing in both isotropic and anisotropic reservoirs has been reported. The results show the three effective period of CO2 storage in aquifers. Comparisons of the results reveal that permeability has significant effect on the onset of convection and convection mixing process. Therefore it is one of the main factors that should be considered in choosing the storage site.