Effects of CO2 Compressibility on CO2 Storage in Deep Saline Aquifers

The injection of supercritical CO2 in deep saline aquifers leads to the formation of a CO2 plume that tends to float above the formation brine. As pressure builds up, CO2 properties, i.e. density and viscosity, can vary significantly. Current analytical solutions do not account for CO2 compressibility. In this article, we investigate numerically and analytically the effect of this variability on the position of the interface between the CO2-rich phase and the formation brine. We introduce a correction to account for CO2 compressibility (density variations) and viscosity variations in current analytical solutions. We find that the error in the interface position caused by neglecting CO2 compressibility is relatively small when viscous forces dominate. However, it can become significant when gravity forces dominate, which is likely to occur at late times of injection.