Pore-Scale Analysis of the Permeability Damage and Recovery during Cyclic Freshwater and Brine Injection in Porous Media Containing Non-Swelling Clays

Pramod Bhuvankar (), Abdullah Cihan and Jen T. Birkholzer
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Pramod Bhuvankar: Energy Geosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94530, USA
Abdullah Cihan: Energy Geosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94530, USA
Jen T. Birkholzer: Energy Geosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94530, USA

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 22, 1-18

Abstract: Permeability damage in subsurface porous media caused by clay mobilization is encountered in many engineering applications, such as geothermal energy, water disposal, oil recovery, and underground CO 2 storage. During the freshwater injection into rocks containing brine, the sudden decrease in salinity causes native clay fines to detach and clog pore throats, leading to a significant decline in permeability. The clay fines detach due to weakened net-attractive forces binding them to each other and the grain. Past experiments link this permeability damage on the immediate history of the salinity and the direction of flow. To better understand this phenomenon, we conducted pore-scale simulations of cyclic injection of freshwater and brine into sandstone containing Kaolinite clay. Our simulations establish a link between the clay-fine trajectory and the permeability trend observed by Khilar and Fogler (1983). For a uniform clay size of 3 microns, we observe a permeability decline by two orders of magnitude during freshwater injection with respect to brine injection. Increasing salinity and simultaneously reversing flow direction restores the permeability. The permeability restoration upon reversing the brine flow direction is attributed to the unblocking of pore throats in the reverse direction by the movement of the clay particles along the grain surfaces by the hydrodynamic force and the strong net-attractive force under high salinity.

Keywords: pore clogging; electric double layer force; DLVO forces; permeability damage; clay mobilization; computational fluid dynamics; immersed boundary method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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