PNNL

Abstract

Increasing attention is being focused on the rapid rise of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, which many believe to be the major contributing factor to global climate change. Sequestering CO2 in deep geological formations has been proposed as a long-term solution to help stabilize CO2 levels. However, before such technology can be developed and implemented, a basic understanding of H2O-CO2 systems and the chemical interactions of these fluids with the host formation must be obtained. Important issues concerning mineral stability, reaction rates, and carbonate formation are all controlled or at least significantly impacted by the kinetics of rock-water reactions in mildly acidic, CO2-saturated solutions. Basalt has recently been identified as a potentially important host formation for geological sequestration. Dissolution kinetics of the Columbia River Basalt (CRB) were measured for a range of temperatures (25° to 90°C) under mildly acidic to neutral pH conditions using the single-pass flow-through test method. Under anaerobic conditions, the normalized dissolution rates for CRB decrease with increasing pH (3=pH=7) with a slope, ?, of -0.12 ± 0.02. An activation energy, Ea, has been estimated at 30.3 ± 2.4 kJ mol-1. Dissolution kinetics measurements like these are essential for modeling the rate at which the CO2 reacts with basalt and ultimately converted to carbonate minerals in situ.