Reservoir condition imaging of reactive transport in heterogeneous carbonates using fast synchrotron tomography - Effect of initial pore structure and flow conditions

•Fast synchrotron tomography is used to image pore scale reaction in two carbonates.•Initial structure impacts the changes in porosity and permeability due to reaction.•We see the emergence of a new type of dissolution pattern: channelling.•The effective reaction rates can be 100 × smaller than batch laboratory experiments.

We investigate the impact of initial pore structure and velocity field heterogeneity on the dynamics of fluid/solid reaction at high Péclet numbers (fast flow) and low Damköhler number (relatively slow reaction rates). The Diamond Lightsource Pink Beam was used to image dissolution of Estaillades and Portland limestones in the presence of CO2-saturated brine at reservoir conditions (10 MPa and 50 °C representing ~ 1 km aquifer depth) at two flow rates for a period of 2 h. Each sample was scanned between 51 and 94 times at 4.76-μm resolution and the dynamic changes in porosity, permeability, and reaction rate were examined using image analysis and flow modelling.We find that the porosity can either increase uniformly through time along the length of the samples, or may exhibit a spatially and temporally varying increase that is attributed to channel formation, a process that is distinct from wormholing, depending on initial pore structure and flow conditions. The dissolution regime was structure-dependent: Estaillades with a higher porosity showed more uniform dissolution, while the lower porosity Portland experienced channel formation. The effective reaction rates were up to two orders of magnitude lower than those measured on a flat substrate with no transport limitations, indicating that the transport of reactant and product is severely hampered away from fast flow channels.