Achievements

Understanding how CO₂ behaves when injected underground is a major challenge for carbon storage projects, as it requires accurately predicting CO₂ migration, trapping efficiency, and long-term interactions with reservoir and caprock formations. The C-PERM instrument is designed for high-pressure CO₂ core-flooding experiments, simulating reservoir conditions to study CO₂ migration, trapping mechanisms, and rock–fluid interactions. It measures absolute permeability to both brine and CO₂, as well as end-point effective permeability in the brine/CO₂ system. The device is crucial for evaluating permeability changes caused by mineral dissolution or precipitation, assessing caprock integrity during cyclic CO₂ injection, and monitoring chemical reactions between CO₂, brine, and rock minerals. The semi-automated C-PERM includes an injection pump, two floating-piston accumulators for brine and CO₂, a hydrostatic core holder, a manually operated confining pump, three differential pressure transducers, a dome-loaded backpressure regulator, a fraction collector, and a pH meter. The computer station allows the operator to input sample and fluid properties along with experimental parameters (pressure gradient and flow rates), after which the instrument calculates the relevant permeabilities using Darcy’s law.