An Experimental Investigation on the Kinetics of Integrated Methane Recovery and CO2 Sequestration by Injection of Flue Gas into Permafrost Methane Hydrate Reservoirs

Aliakbar Hassanpouryouzband; Jinhai Yang; Anthony Okwananke; Rod Burgass; Bahman Tohidi; Evgeny Chuvilin; Vladimir Istomin; Boris Bukhanov

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-52745-x

An Experimental Investigation on the Kinetics of Integrated Methane Recovery and CO₂ Sequestration by Injection of Flue Gas into Permafrost Methane Hydrate Reservoirs

Sci Rep. 2019 Nov 7;9(1):16206. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-52745-x.

Authors

Aliakbar Hassanpouryouzband^{1

2}, Jinhai Yang³, Anthony Okwananke¹, Rod Burgass¹, Bahman Tohidi¹, Evgeny Chuvilin⁴, Vladimir Istomin⁴, Boris Bukhanov⁴

Affiliations

¹ Hydrates, Flow Assurance & Phase Equilibria Research Group, Institute of Petroleum Engineering, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK.
² School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Grant Institute, West Main Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JW, UK.
³ Hydrates, Flow Assurance & Phase Equilibria Research Group, Institute of Petroleum Engineering, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK. petjy@hw.ac.uk.
⁴ Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), 3 Nobel Street, Skolkovo Innovation Center, 10, Moscow, 143026, Russia.

Abstract

Large hydrate reservoirs in the Arctic regions could provide great potentials for recovery of methane and geological storage of CO₂. In this study, injection of flue gas into permafrost gas hydrates reservoirs has been studied in order to evaluate its use in energy recovery and CO₂ sequestration based on the premise that it could significantly lower costs relative to other technologies available today. We have carried out a series of real-time scale experiments under realistic conditions at temperatures between 261.2 and 284.2 K and at optimum pressures defined in our previous work, in order to characterize the kinetics of the process and evaluate efficiency. Results show that the kinetics of methane release from methane hydrate and CO₂ extracted from flue gas strongly depend on hydrate reservoir temperatures. The experiment at 261.2 K yielded a capture of 81.9% CO₂ present in the injected flue gas, and an increase in the CH₄ concentration in the gas phase up to 60.7 mol%, 93.3 mol%, and 98.2 mol% at optimum pressures, after depressurizing the system to dissociate CH₄ hydrate and after depressurizing the system to CO₂ hydrate dissociation point, respectively. This is significantly better than the maximum efficiency reported in the literature for both CO₂ sequestration and methane recovery using flue gas injection, demonstrating the economic feasibility of direct injection flue gas into hydrate reservoirs in permafrost for methane recovery and geological capture and storage of CO₂. Finally, the thermal stability of stored CO₂ was investigated by heating the system and it is concluded that presence of N₂ in the injection gas provides another safety factor for the stored CO₂ in case of temperature change.