Impacts of relative permeability hysteresis, wettability, and injection/withdrawal schemes on underground hydrogen storage in saline aquifers

Numerical simulation of the impact of different cushion gases on underground hydrogen storage in aquifers based on an experimentally-benchmarked equation-of-state

“…They concluded, among others, that the hysteretic behavior of the hydrogen transport is a key factor in its recovery factor estimate. Pan et al [28] analyzed the impact of relative permeability hysteresis, rock wettability, and injection and withdrawal schemes on the hydrogen withdrawal efficiency. The results showed that hydrogen-brine relative permeability hysteresis led to higher hydrogen withdrawal purity; however, more water-wet conditions caused a lower hydrogen withdrawal efficiency and a higher water production.…”

“…Despite the numerous reservoir simulation studies mentioned above, simulating multi-phase multi-component UHS reservoirs remains a challenge due to the complexities of hysteretic transport characteristics, dissolution of hydrogen in brine, and gas mixtures hydrothermodynamics. Nonhysteretic relative permeability can overestimate cumulative hydrogen production [27,28,35]. This is because gas trapping reduces the available pore space for the injected hydrogen.…”

“…This is because gas trapping reduces the available pore space for the injected hydrogen. Conversely, when considering the hysteresis of H2-brine relative permeability, it could lead to higher purity in the produced hydrogen [28]. The challenges related to dissolution and mixture thermodynamics can be resolved by accurate modeling of the mixtures' thermodynamic properties such as density and viscosity.…”

Wettability of Caprock–H2–Water: Insights from Molecular Dynamic Simulations and Sessile-Drop Experiment

“…However, Hashemi et al 15 and Zeng et al 16 did not observe any correlation between the H 2 -contact angles on sandstone and pressure, salinity, and temperature. Recent research conducted by Pan et al 18 examined the effects of mineral wettability, withdrawal/injection rates, and permeability hysteresis for the underground H 2 storage using reservoir scale simulation. They observed that we can withdraw a highly pure H 2 gas due to H 2 −brine relative permeability hysteresis, however, with a low H 2 withdrawal rate.…”

Liquid Permeability Determination from Vacuum Imbibition in Tight/Shale Core Plugs

“…Permeability is a key petrophysical parameter that determines the ability of a fluid to flow in the subsurface. − Permeability thus strongly affects many geological and industrial processes, such as enhanced hydrocarbon recovery, − groundwater transport, − nuclear waste disposal, − carbon dioxide geostorage, − and underground hydrogen storage. − Classically, permeability is considered as an intrinsic property of a porous medium, which is independent of fluid properties and fluid–rock interactions . This assumption is reasonable in high-permeability conventional reservoirs (e.g., sandstones), where large pore sizes (micrometer scale) are dominant.…”