CO₂ Storage in Coal Seams: Coupling Surface Adsorption and Strain

This chapter proposes a multi-scale approach in order to estimate the complex evolutions of injectivity over the process of injection. It describes the injection of carbon dioxide in a coal bed by combining work at the scale of the molecule and at the scale of the reservoir. The chapter first derives the poromechanical model for the coal bed reservoir. It talks about the derivation of the constitutive equations which govern the behavior of a coal bed reservoir during an injection of fluid. Next, the chapter discusses Monte Carlo molecular simulation in order to estimate the adsorption isotherm of carbon dioxide on coal. The simulated adsorption isotherm is then used as an input for reservoir simulations of injection of carbon dioxide in a coal bed reservoir. This multi-scale approach is relevant to any porous medium in which adsorption causes a strain.