Philippe Gouze

X-ray microtomography characterization of porosity, permeability and reactive surface changes during dissolution.

Numerical programs for simulating flow and reactive transport in porous media are essential tools for predicting reservoir properties changes triggered by CO(2) underground injection. At reservoir scale, meshed models in which equations are solved assuming that constant macroscopic properties can be defined in each cells, are widely used. However, the parameterization of the dissolution-precipitation problem and of the feedback effects of these processes on the flow field is still challenging. The problem arises from the mismatch between the scales at which averaged parameters are defined in the meshed model and the scale at which chemical reactions occur and modify the pore network geometry. In this paper we investigate the links between the dissolution mechanisms that control the porosity changes and the related changes of the reactive surface area and of the permeability. First, the reactive surface area is computed from X-ray microtomography data obtained before and after a set of dissolution experiments of pure calcite rock samples using distinctly different brine-CO(2) mixtures characterizing homogeneous to heterogeneous dissolution regimes. The results are used to validate the power law empirical model relating the reactive surface area to porosity proposed by Luquot and Gouze (2009). Second, we investigate the spatial distribution of the effective hydraulic radius and of the tortuosity, two structural parameters that control permeability, in order to explain the different porosity-permeability relationships observed for heterogeneous and homogeneous dissolution regimes. It is shown that the increase of permeability is due to the decrease of the tortuosity for homogeneous dissolution, whereas it is due to the combination of tortuosity decrease and hydraulic radius increase for heterogeneous dissolution. For the intermediate dissolution regime, identified to be the optimal regime for increasing permeability with small changes in porosity, the increase of permeability results from a large increase in the mean effective hydraulic radius of the sample.

Investigation of porosity and permeability effects from microstructure changes during limestone dissolution

[1] We studied experimentally the dissolution of a porous limestone core during CO 2 -enriched water injection. We measured the changes in porosity and permeability arising from modifications of the pore network geometry and the fluid-rock interface. A methodology based on periodic X-ray microtomography imaging was implemented to record the evolution of the time- and scale-dependent microstructures with a spatial resolution of 4.91 μm. Two processes were successively involved in the rapid permeability increase of the sample, as documented from microscale to core-scale measurements. First, the microcrystalline phase was partially dissolved, associated with displacement of mineral particles. During this process, the exponent n of the power law k ∼ Φ n decreased continuously. Secondly the sparitic phase dissolved, accompanied by a decrease of the pore wall roughness and an increase of the pore connectivity. This second period was characterized by a constant value of n. The reactive surface decreased noticeably during the transition from the microcrystalline to the sparitic dissolution periods, whereas the effective porosity increased strongly.

Non-Fickian dispersion in porous media explained by heterogeneous microscale matrix diffusion

Mobile-immobile mass transfer is widely used to model non-Fickian dispersion in porous media. Nevertheless, the memory function, implemented in the sink/source term of the transport equation to characterize diffusion in the matrix (i.e., the immobile domain), is rarely measured directly. Therefore, the question can be posed as to whether the memory function is just a practical way of increasing the degrees of freedom for fitting tracer test breakthrough curves or whether it actually models the physics of tracer transport. In this paper we first present a technique to measure the memory function of aquifer samples and then compare the results with the memory function fitted from a set of field-scale tracer tests performed in the same aquifer. The memory function is computed by solving the matrix diffusion equation using a random walk approach. The properties that control diffusion (i.e., mobile-immobile interface and immobile domain cluster shapes, porosity, and tortuosity) are investigated by X-ray microtomography. Once the geometry of the matrix clusters is measured, the shape of the memory function is controlled by the value of the porosity at the percolation threshold and of the tortuosity of the diffusion path. These parameters can be evaluated from microtomographic images. The computed memory function compares well with the memory function deduced from the field-scale tracer tests. We conclude that for the reservoir rock studied here, the atypical non-Fickian dispersion measured from the tracer test is well explained by microscale diffusion processes in the immobile domain. A diffusion-controlled mobileimmobile mass transfer model therefore appears to be valid for this specific case.

Experimental Characterization of Porosity Structure and Transport Property Changes in Limestone Undergoing Different Dissolution Regimes

Limestone dissolution by

Effective non-local reaction kinetics for transport in physically and chemically heterogeneous media

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Random Walk Methods for Modeling Hydrodynamic Transport in Porous and Fractured Media from Pore to Reservoir Scale

CO2-rich brine induces critical changes of the pore network geometrical parameters such as the pore size distribution, the connectivity, and the tortuosity which govern the macroscopic transport properties (permeability and dispersivity) that are required to parameterize the models, simulating the injection and the fate of

Dual control of flow field heterogeneity and immobile porosity on non-Fickian transport in Berea sandstone

\hbox {CO}_2