The laboratory testing and scale-up of a downhole device for CO2 dissolution acceleration

• A new downhole dissolution device is proposed and tested for CO2 storage in saline aquifers.
• Experiments are conducted to measure the mass transfer and the dissipated power under geostorage conditions.
• The device can significantly improve the mass transfer between CO2 and water.
• The dissipated power for a field-scale application is only a small fraction of the required power for CO2 injection.

We propose a new dissolution technique using a static mixer at the bottom of well as a mass transfer device for CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers. New experimental measurements on static mixer performance are provided. Experiments are conducted to measure the mass transfer and the dissipated power for CO2–water system under geological storage conditions. Mass transfer and pressure drop models are developed and calibrated with the experimental data. These models are then used to scale-up the downhole dissolution and power dissipation. Results show that the static mixer can significantly improve the mass transfer between CO2 and water and decrease the length scale for mass transfer. It is also shown that the dissipated power for a field-scale application is only a small fraction of the required power for CO2 injection. These results will find application in optimum designing of a real-size static mixers and field-scale implementation of CO2 geological storage.