Development of Unified Experimental and Theoretical Approach to Predict Reactive Transport in Subsurface Porous Media

该项目旨在减少与21世纪主要全球挑战相关的不确定性和风险——确保可持续地获得水、能源和食物。要解决这一挑战，对自然系统的基本理解在很大程度上与多孔岩石的储存和提取有关：这包括安全储存二氧化碳以减少温室气体排放，从碳氢化合物储层中有效回收和地下水管理。复杂的地质结构，如碳酸盐岩，包含了世界上至少一半的常规石油储量，并具有巨大的二氧化碳储存能力。英国的战略能源计划包括在提高石油采收率和碳酸盐储碳方面发挥主导作用。英国最重要的含水层是一种非常纯净的石灰石（碳酸钙），提供了超过一半的饮用水和工业用水。流体在复杂地质构造中的运移——对流体如何运动的定量描述——对于合理理解自然系统中的这些过程绝对至关重要，但它仍然没有被完全理解，特别是当它与化学反应结合在一起时。众所周知，地质系统承载着跨越巨大空间和时间尺度的物理和化学过程，但迄今为止的研究主要集中在理解多孔介质的结构，以及流场、输运和反应之间相互作用的宏观描述。然而，孔结构、流场、输运和化学反应之间的相互作用尚不清楚。化学反应引入了下一个层次的复杂性，在长度尺度的层次上进行定量描述尤其具有挑战性。我们将通过结合新的实验核磁共振方法和一种新的多尺度建模方法来解决多孔介质中反应输运的问题。这种统一的方法在保留局部反应输运参数在空间和时间分布函数方面的详细信息方面具有关键优势，而不仅仅是具有空间和/或时间平均的宏观参数。我们将进行一个系统的研究项目，将孔隙到岩心尺度的测量和反应输运过程的建模整合到一个统一的实验和理论框架中，旨在回答以下关键问题：*我们如何建立一种方法来测量和预测含水层和储层中的反应输运速率？*天然岩石中控制反应输运的结构、流动、输运和反应性质之间的关系是什么？*从结构、流动、输运和反应性质方面预测天然岩石反应输运的关键不确定性是什么？*孔隙尺度上的输运和反应物理对大尺度上的反应输运有什么影响？

This project aims to reduce the uncertainty and risk associated with key global challenges for the 21st century - securing sustainable access to water, energy and food. The underpinning understanding of natural systems to address this challenge is, in a large part, concerned with storage and extraction from porous rock: this includes safe storage of carbon dioxide to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, efficient recovery from hydrocarbon reservoirs and groundwater management. Complex geological structures such as carbonate rock contain at least half of the world's conventional oil reserves, and have a significant storage capacity for CO2. The UK strategic energy plans include taking a leading role in enhanced oil recovery and carbon storage in carbonates. The most important UK aquifer is a remarkably pure limestone (calcium carbonate) providing more than half the water supply for drinking and industrial purposes. Transport - a quantitative description of how fluids move - through complex geological structures is absolutely crucial to a rational understanding of these processes in natural systems and yet it is still not fully understood, especially when coupled with chemical reactions. While it is well known that geological systems host physical and chemical processes that span a huge range of spatial and temporal scales, research - to date - has largely focused on understanding the structure of the porous medium, and the macroscopic description of the interplay between flow field, transport and reaction. However the interplay between pore structure, flow field, transport and chemical reaction is unknown.Chemical reaction introduces the next level of complexity that is particularly challenging to quantitatively describe across a hierarchy of length scales. We will address this problem for reactive transport in porous media by combining new experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance methods with a novel multiple scale modelling method. This unified approach will have a key advantage in retaining detailed information on localised reactive transport parameters in terms of spatial and temporal distribution functions, rather than only having spatially and/or temporally averaged macroscopic parameters. We will undertake a systematic program of research integrating pore-to-core scale measurements and modelling of reactive transport processes into a unified experimental and theoretical framework aimed at answering the following key questions:* How can we establish a methodology to measure and predict the reactive transport rates within aquifers and reservoirs?* What are relationships between structural, flow, transport and reaction properties governing reactive transport in natural rock?* What are key uncertainties in predicting reactive transport in natural rock in terms of structural, flow, transport and reaction properties?* What impact the transport and reaction physics at the pore scale have on reactive transport at the large scale?