Super-critical carbon dioxide flow behaviour in low rank coal: A meso-scale experimental study

Abstract The carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) adsorbed in coal seams during CO 2 -enhanced coal bed methane recovery (CO 2 -ECBM) causes substantial coal matrix alterations, resulting in significantly reduced flow performance. Many studies have been conducted to date on the effect of CO 2 phase on coal mass permeability. However, the effect of coal rank on these permeability changes with CO 2 phase has not yet been studied. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to investigate how the influence of CO 2 phase condition on coal flow performance varies with rank. A series of tri–axial permeability tests was conducted using Australian brown coal samples for both CO 2 and N 2 under various confinements and injections at 35 °C. The results were then compared with those for high-rank coal reported in the literature. According to the test results, greater coal macro-pore-structure rearrangement occurs with super-critical CO 2 adsorption, resulting in lower permeability in coal, regardless of rank. However, this CO 2 phase influence is much greater for high-rank coal. Although coal permeability reduces with depth for any rank of coal, this depth effect reduces with increasing rank. Furthermore, although N 2 has the ability to recover CO 2 adsorption-induced swelled areas in coal regardless of rank, that capability is much greater for high-rank coal.

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