Geomechanical effects of carbon sequestration as CO2 hydrates and CO2-N2 hydrates on host submarine sediments

Abstract

Over the past 10 years, more than 300 trillion kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) have been emitted into the atmosphere, deemed responsible for climate change. The capture and storage of CO2 has been therefore attracting research interests globally. CO2 injection in submarine sediments can provide a way of CO2 sequestration as solid hydrates in sediments by reacting with pore water. However, CO2 hydrate formation may occur relatively fast, resulting decreasing CO2 injectivity. In response, nitrogen (N2) addition has been suggested to prevent potential blockage through slower CO2-N2 hydrate formation process. Although there have been studies to explore this technique in methane hydrate recovery, little attention is paid to CO2 storage efficiency and geomechanical responses of host marine sediments. To better understand carbon sequestration efficiency via hydrate formation and related sediment geomechanical behaviour, this study presents numerical simulations for single well injection of pure CO2 and CO2-N2 mixture into submarine sediments. The results show that CO2-N2 mixture injection improves the efficiency of CO2 storage while maintaining relatively small deformation, which highlights the importance of injectivity and hydrate formation rate for CO2 storage as solid hydrates in submarine sediments.