Microscopic pore structure and macroscopic fluid flow-chemical transport with the coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical processes

Various types of porous media (both unconsolidated and consolidated geological bodies and engineering materials, etc.) and fluids (water, gas, oil, supercritical carbon dioxide, etc.) are closely intertwined with multiple fields such as the environment, geology, and geotechnical engineering, involving soil contamination and groundwater remediation, high-level nuclear waste disposal, carbon dioxide storage, shale oil and gas extraction, hydrogen energy storage, and geothermal utilization. Nano-petrophysical studies focus on rock properties, fluid properties, and the interaction between rocks and fluids, especially for low-permeability geological and engineering media with a large number of nano-scale pores, as their microscopic pore structure (pore size distribution, pore shape and connectivity) controls the macroscopic fluid-rock interaction and the efficient development or preservation of various energy fluids. Such a subsurface system involves a wide range of nm-μm scale pore sizes, various pore connectivity and wettability, in addition to the coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes of deep earth environments. This work showcases the development and application of an integrated and complementary suite of nano-petrophysical characterization approaches, including pycnometry (liquid and gas), porosimetry (mercury intrusion, gas physisorption), imaging (Wood’s metal impregnation followed with field emission-scanning electron microscopy), scattering (ultra- and small-angle neutron and X-ray), and the utility of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic fluids as well as fluid invasion tests (imbibition, diffusion, vacuum saturation) followed by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry imaging of different nm-sized tracers in porous materials. These methodologies have been extended into coupled THMC processes under reservoir-relevant setting, such as the small-angle scattering (SAS) method developed and utilized for the direct observation of rock deformation behavior at a spatial resolution of 1 nm with stresses up to 164 MPa using a self-developed high-pressure cell for mechanistic studies of fluid-solid coupling. 

Acknowledgement: This work was supported by the Basic Science Center Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Type A; No. 42302145) and the International Cooperation Project of PetroChina (2023DQ0422).