Microcosmic gas adsorption mechanism on clay-organic nanocomposites in a marine shale

Hongjian Zhu, Yiwen Ju, Cheng Huang, Fangwen Chen, Bozhen Chen and Kun Yu

Energy, 2020, vol. 197, issue C

Abstract: Marine sourced clay minerals and organic matter enrichment as clay-organic nanocomposites within shale has attracted attention because of their changeable surface areas, nanoporosity, and methane adsorbability. Here marine shale samples were used to investigate the characteristics of clay-organic nanocomposites and their impact on gas adsorption response. The results show that organic nanolayers mainly occur as nanometer intercalations with clay nanolayers. High-resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images provide direct evidence of the parallel aligned clay-organic nanocomposites with an approximate thickness of each organic and clay nanolayer and the positive correlations between their morphology, occurrence, and relative content. However, such clay-organic interactions are significantly damaged by structural deformation, accompanied by a weakening in gas adsorption capacity. We suggest that the naturally occurring structures that hydrocarbon molecules are attached or resided in fine-grained marine shales are predominantly associated with clay-organic nanocomposites, which play an important role as adsorption carriers. Moreover, the clay-organic association may be an effective mechanism of gas adsorption. These observations and investigations could challenge the common perception that discrete kerogen and clay minerals are the major components for gas adsorption.

Keywords: Adsorption mechanism; Clay-organic nanocomposites; Shale gas; Marine shale; Nanostructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220303637
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:197:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220303637

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117256

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().