New Equipment for Complementary Petrophysical Characterization of Rocks for Deep Geological Storage

The geological storage of CO2 in coal seams is an emerging option in the portfolio of mitigation actions for reduction of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. A background study focused to the selection of favorable sites for CO2 geological storage are necessary steps, and in the selection of reservoirs for CO2 sequestration a complete petrophysical characterization of the sample is necessary. To complement the classical petrophysical parameters measured on the rocks of the geological formation with potential to be used to store the injected CO2, a new equipment has been designed and constructed to simulate at a laboratory scale the inter-action between the rock and the injected CO2, at different pressure conditions simulating depths of the geological formations up to 1000 m. The design and construction of this equipment allows us to investigate known physical and chemical processes that occur between the rocks store/seal and the fluid injected into geological storage. Essays focused to study the alterability of the rock in contact with CO2 either in subcritical or supercritical state, as well as essays for CO2 injectivity on the rock can be accomplished.