Carbon dioxide (CO2) injection
into shale reservoirs
is a potentially efficient technique to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
while enhancing methane recovery. Despite research displaying a dominant
role of organic matter (OM) in the adsorption behavior of shales,
we show in this study that pore-size distribution and accessibility
could be more important than merely having more OM. We assessed this
hypothesis by conducting a combined set of experiments including (i)
CO2 adsorption of Australian shale samples collected from
Beetaloo, Perth, and Cooper basins before and after removing their
OM using oxygen plasma ashing, at pressures up to 5.0 MPa and two
temperatures (30 and 50 °C); (ii) CO2 adsorption of
clay minerals (kaolinite, illite, and smectite) at the same pressures
and temperatures; and (iii) X-ray diffraction (XRD), mercury injection
capillary pressure (MICP), and focused ion beam scanning electron
microscopy (FIB-SEM) to examine the effects of the samples' compositional
and structural properties with CO2 adsorption. The results
of this study highlighted the significant role of microporosity and
pore structure/accessibility in the adsorption process of both shale’s
organic and inorganic counterparts. Specifically, for the studied
samples, it was found that (a) the calculated amount of CO2 adsorbed by OM separated from intact organic-shale samples is multiple
times larger than the amount adsorbed by the intact organic-shale
samples themselves (from which the OMs were removed); (b) the OM of
the Beetaloo, which has higher pore-size distribution and volume than
the OMs of the other two samples, adsorbed double the amount; (c)
the positive correlation between shales’ adsorption capacity
and TOC is mainly controlled by porosity and pore structure of the
OM; (d) while shale samples reach their adsorption capacity at relatively
low pressures, the adsorption process of clay minerals is faster at
lower temperatures; (e) although montmorillonite has a higher total
surface area than illite, both adsorb approximately the same amount
suggesting that adsorption mostly occurs at external rather than internal
clay surfaces; and (f) CO2 has a higher affinity to remain
adsorbed in organic shales than in clays.