Hashemi Leila, Blunt Martin, Hajibeygi Hadi
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA, Delft, The Netherlands.
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
Sci Rep. 2021 Apr 16;11(1):8348. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-87490-7.
Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) in initially brine-saturated deep porous rocks is a promising large-scale energy storage technology, due to hydrogen's high specific energy capacity and the high volumetric capacity of aquifers. Appropriate selection of a feasible and safe storage site vitally depends on understanding hydrogen transport characteristics in the subsurface. Unfortunately there exist no robust experimental analyses in the literature to properly characterise this complex process. As such, in this work, we present a systematic pore-scale modelling study to quantify the crucial reservoir-scale functions of relative permeability and capillary pressure and their dependencies on fluid and reservoir rock conditions. To conduct a conclusive study, in the absence of sufficient experimental data, a rigorous sensitivity analysis has been performed to quantify the impacts of uncertain fluid and rock properties on these upscaled functions. The parameters are varied around a base-case, which is obtained through matching to the existing experimental study. Moreover, cyclic hysteretic multiphase flow is also studied, which is a relevant aspect for cyclic hydrogen-brine energy storage projects. The present study applies pore-scale analysis to predict the flow of hydrogen in storage formations, and to quantify the sensitivity to the micro-scale characteristics of contact angle (i.e., wettability) and porous rock structure.
在初始充满盐水的深部多孔岩石中进行地下氢存储（UHS）是一项很有前景的大规模储能技术，这归因于氢的高比能量容量以及含水层的高容积容量。合适地选择一个可行且安全的存储地点至关重要地取决于对地下氢传输特性的理解。不幸的是，文献中不存在有力的实验分析来恰当地表征这个复杂过程。因此，在这项工作中，我们开展了一项系统的孔隙尺度建模研究，以量化相对渗透率和毛管压力这些关键的储层尺度函数及其对流体和储层岩石条件的依赖性。为了进行一项结论性研究，在缺乏足够实验数据的情况下，已进行了严格的敏感性分析，以量化不确定的流体和岩石属性对这些向上尺度化函数的影响。参数围绕一个通过与现有实验研究匹配而获得的基础情况进行变化。此外，还研究了循环滞后多相流，这对于循环氢 - 盐水储能项目是一个相关方面。本研究应用孔隙尺度分析来预测存储地层中氢的流动，并量化对接触角（即润湿性）和多孔岩石结构的微观尺度特征的敏感性。
