Investigation of CO2 dissolution via mass transfer inside a porous medium

The dissolution of trapped carbon dioxide (CO2) gas under various water flow rate inside a porous medium was experimentally studied using X-ray microtomography. Image processing techniques were used to determine the morphologies, CO2 fractions, and interfacial areas of the trapped bubbles. Based on fractal dimension analysis, the bubble morphology was classified into single-pore bubbles and multi-pore bubbles. Different dissolution phenomena with liquid-liquid systems were observed. First, the calculated mass transfer coefficient was lower than one order of magnitude. Second, two consecutive dissolution fronts appeared. These two fronts were not triggered by a difference in solute concentration because they occurred at CO2 concentrations far from saturated conditions. However, velocity-dependent mass transfer indicated a power function with a power value similar with liquid-liquid system dissolution experiment.