Feasibility of carbon dioxide geological storage in abandoned coal mine: A fully coupled model with validated multi-physical interactions

It has gained wide attention that Carbon dioxide (CO2) is to be injected into abandoned coal mines for geological storage of CO2-enhanced coalbed methane recovery. Although abundantly evidences in literature indicate that the injection of CO2 will cause lots of interactions among the mechanical characteristics of coal and the properties of CO2 flow, further studies on these multi-physical interactions are still necessary. In this work, a series of laboratory experiments to elucidate the multi-physical interactions of CO2 adsorption, softening effect of coal and the non-Darcy gas flow were conducted. Based on the experimental results, theoretical and empirical models to describe these coal-CO2 interactions were meticulously proposed and validated, the results turned out to be satisfactory. Consequently, the compressive strength and elasticity modulus of coal decrease exponentially with the increased injection CO2 pressure. The gas flow in coal obeys the Izbash non-Darcy model, and coal permeability can be well modified by the volumetric stress. By taking these coal-CO2 interactions into account, this study established of a fully coupled model for coal deformation and CO2 conservation. The model was then implemented into the numerical simulations of CO2 storage in abandoned coal mine by using the finite element method. A series of scenario-based numerical simulations was conducted to investigate the feasibility and limitation of CO2 storage in abandoned coal mine. The conducted experiments, models and numerical simulation will offer implications on the multi-physical interactions between coal and gas especially in CO2 storage in abandoned coal mines.