Investigation of the interaction of CO₂ and CH₄ hydrate for the determination of feasibility of CO₂ storage in the Black Sea sediments

• Main Author: Örs, Oytun
• Other Authors: Sınayuç, Çağlar, Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Geological carbon sequestration; ; Natural gas; Carbon dioxide; Methane; ; Sediments (Geology); Methane hydrate
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/21936; http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614673/index.pdf

Recently, carbon dioxide injection into deep sea sediments has become one of the carbon dioxide mitigation methods since carbon dioxide hydrates are stable at the prevailing pressure and temperature conditions. The Black Sea, which is one of the major identified natural methane hydrate regions of the world, can be a good candidate for carbon dioxide storage in hydrate form. Injected carbon dioxide under the methane hydrate stability region will be in contact with methane hydrate which should be analyzed thoroughly in order to increase our understanding on the gaseous carbon dioxide and methane hydrate interaction. For the storage of huge amounts of CO2, geological structure must contain an impermeable barrier. In general such a barrier may consist of clay or salt. In this study, sealing efficiency of methane hydrate and long term fate of the CO2 disposal under the methane hydrate zone is investigated. In order to determine the interaction of CO2 and CH4 hydrate and the sealing efficiency of CH4 hydrate, experimental setup is prepared and various tests are performed including the CH4 hydrate formation in both bulk conditions and within sand particles, measurement of the permeability of unconsolidated sand particles that includes 30% and 50% methane hydrate saturations and injection of CO2 into the CH4 hydrate. Results of the experiments indicate that, presence of hydrate sharply decreases the permeability of the unconsolidated sand system and systems with hydrate saturations greater than 50% may act as an impermeable layer. Also, CO2-CH4 swap within the hydrate cages is observed at different experimental conditions. As a result of this study, it can be concluded that methane hydrate stability region in deep sea sediments would be a good alternative for the safe storage of CO2. Therefore, methane hydrate stability region in the Black Sea sediments can be considered for the disposal of CO2. M.S. - Master of Science