Impact of background flow on dissolution trapping of carbon dioxide injected into saline aquifers

Abstract

While there has been a large interest in studying the role of dissolution-driven free convection in the context of geological sequestration, the contribution of forced convection has been largely ignored. This manuscript considers CO$_2$ sequestration in saline aquifers with natural background flow and uses theoretical arguments to compute the critical background velocity needed to establish the forced convective regime. The theoretical arguments are supported by two dimensional high-resolution numerical simulations which demonstrate the importance of forced convection in enhancing dissolution in aquifers characterised by low Rayleigh numbers.