Petroleum Reservoir Evaluation and Development ›› 2025, Vol. 15 ›› Issue (6): 995-1006.doi: 10.13809/j.cnki.cn32-1825/te.2025.06.005

• Oil and Gas Exploration • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Evolution and fractal characteristics of pore structure in coals of different ranks under supercritical CO2-H2O

SONG Xuemei1(), ZHANG Kun1(), DONG Liang2, MA Mengya3, LIU Huihu2, XU Hongjie2, WANG Zhi1   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Digital Intelligent Technology for Unmanned Coal Mining, Huainan, Anhui 232001, China
    2. School of Earth and Environment, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, Anhui 232001, China
    3. Joint National-Local Engineering Research Centre for Safe and Precise Coal Mining, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, Anhui 232001, China
  • Received:2024-09-25 Online:2025-10-24 Published:2025-12-26

Abstract:

Injecting CO2 into deep coal seams to enhance coalbed methane (CBM) extraction has both environmental and economic benefits, indicating broad development prospects. To investigate the structural changes of different types of coal after CO2 injection, five samples with different maximum vitrinite reflectance (Ro, max) were selected to conduct supercritical CO2 injection experiments under conditions simulating a coal seam burial depth of 1 500 m. The pore and fracture structures of the coal samples before and after injection were characterized using low-temperature N2 adsorption and mercury intrusion porosimetry. The extent of changes was quantitatively compared using fractal theory. The results of N2 adsorption experiments showed that the pore volume of the coal samples before and after supercritical CO2-H2O reaction initially decreased and then increased with increasing coal rank. An inflection point was formed at coking coal, with the most significant increase in pore volume observed within the micropore range (pore diameter 0~2 nm). The changes in pore volume observed in mercury intrusion porosimetry experiments were relatively complex, with significant increases in the transition pore range (pore diameter>2~50 nm) and fracture range (pore diameter>1 000 nm). This was because the supercritical CO2-H2O reaction increased the proportion of non-effective connected pores in the coal, enhancing the local connectivity of the coal samples. Furthermore, the total pore volume of some samples even showed a decreasing trend after reaction, likely due to the blockage of pores and fractures by detached minerals. The fractal analysis results of pore parameters before and after reaction showed that the changes in pore and fracture structure depended on the characteristic coal parameters. The changes in pore volume were more pronounced in low-rank and high-rank coals after the reaction, and the extent of change was more significant in samples with higher mineral content. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of how CO2 injection changes the pore structure of deep coal seams and can provide a reference for site selection in CO2 geological storage and enhanced coalbed methane development (CO2-ECBM) projects.

Key words: supercritical CO2, CO2-ECBM, coal rank, pore variation, fractal

CLC Number: 

  • TE357