Journal
WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH
Volume 54, Issue 7, Pages 5017-5029Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1029/2017WR020826
Keywords
methane adsorption; moisture; shale
Categories
Funding
- China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing, China
- Center for Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology
- National Natural Sciences Foundation of China [40772208, 41272387]
- China Geological Survey program [12120115003301]
- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fossil Energy, Office of Natural Gas and Petroleum Technology, through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) [DE-AC02-05CH11231, FWP-ESD14085]
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Shale gas equilibrates through gas-liquid-solid interactions in reservoirs, but the role of moisture is rarely investigated. To determine how adsorbed water influences methane behavior, three carboniferous shale samples from the Qaidam Basin, China, were humidified at five levels up to a relative humidity of 89%, and their methane capacities at pressures up to 12 MPa were studied. The experimental results indicate that two water-related mechanisms, water blocking for methane transport and surface competition for gas-solid interaction, are primarily responsible for the methane capacity variations. A compositional comparison suggests that a high abundance of clay minerals plays a favorable role in methane migration by retaining water in interlayer pores. Based on the experimental data, an optimized method for calculating the adsorption amount based on an approximation of density distribution is proposed. The model predicts the average thickness of the adsorption layer and the adsorbed methane density distribution on the surface at a given pressure. The methane adsorption layer thins in a stepped pattern by up to 45% in the presence of water, with little further change observed at relative humidities greater than 75% in the studied samples.
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