Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging has demonstrated its capability in providing time-lapse fluid flow visualisation for improving the understanding of flow properties of geologic media. To investigate the process of CO2 geo-sequestration using PET imaging technology, [11C]CO2 is the most optimal and direct radiotracer. However, it has not been extensively used due to the short half-life of Carbon-11 (20.4 minutes). In this work, a novel laboratory protocol is developed to use [11C]CO2 as radiolabelled tracer to visualise and quantify in-situ CO2 adsorption, spreading, diffusion, and advection flow in coal. This protocol consists of generation and delivering of [11C]CO2, lab-based PET scanning, subsequent micro-CT scanning, and data processing. The lab-based PET scanning setup integrates in-situ core flooding tests with PET scanning. The real-time PET images are acquired under different storage conditions, including early gas production stage, depleted stage, and late storage stage. These datasets can be used to study across-scale theoretical and experimental study of CO2 flow behaviour in coal with the application to CO2 geo-sequestration.
© 2023. The Author(s).