Modeling CO2–brine–rock interactions in the Knox Group: Implications of a deep carbon storage field test in western Kentucky

The Cambrian–Ordovician Knox Group, a thick sequence of dolostone and minor dolomitic sandstone, is a prospective CO2 sequestration target in the southern Illinois Basin, USA. Thorough evaluation of the Knox Group is critical because the main sequestration target elsewhere in the Illinois Basin, the Cambrian Mount Simon Sandstone, is thin or absent throughout most of Kentucky. A 2477-m-deep carbon storage test well in Hancock County, Kentucky, was drilled, and 626 metric tons of CO2 was injected into the Knox saline reservoirs. To understand the long-term fate of CO2 injected into the Knox reservoirs, geochemical reactions between CO2, brine and rock-forming minerals were modeled using TOUGHREACT. The modeling benefited from a robust data set collected from the test well, including core porosity and permeability, petrographic and X-ray powder diffraction mineralogy, brine chemistry, temperature and pressure measurements. Kinetic batch models and 2-D radial reactive transport models were used to evaluate the migration of the injected CO2, changes in brine chemistry, and mineral dissolution and precipitation. Results from the kinetic models suggest that sections of the Knox dominated by dolomite have very limited mineral-trapping capacity for CO2, whereas thin sections of dolomitic sandstone with aluminosilicate minerals such as K-feldspar facilitate mineral trapping. The 2-D model for the CO2 injection test suggests that, because of the presence of thick permeable intervals in the Knox and the small volume of injected CO2 in the test, the radius of influence is less than 11 m from the well. The hypothetical long-term injection model indicates, on the other hand, that commercial-scale injection would influence a much larger area and part of the injected CO2 remains in the supercritical/gas phase for a long time. Because of the buoyancy effect, most supercritical/gas-phase CO2 migrates upward and stays in the top of the reservoirs dominated by dolomite with small mineral-trapping capacity.