Elsevier

Marine Pollution Bulletin

Volume 85, Issue 1, 15 August 2014, Pages 78-85
Marine Pollution Bulletin

Evaluation of CO2 solubility-trapping and mineral-trapping in microbial-mediated CO2–brine–sandstone interaction

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.06.019Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Microbes could adapt and keep relatively high activity under extreme subsurface environment.

  • Microbes played a positive role in CO2 solubility trapping and mineral trapping.

  • The more biomass of microbes added, the more CO2 dissolved and trapped into the water.

  • Secondary minerals like transition-state calcite and crystal siderite were formed.

Abstract

Evaluation of CO2 solubility-trapping and mineral-trapping by microbial-mediated process was investigated by lab experiments in this study. The results verified that microbes could adapt and keep relatively high activity under extreme subsurface environment (pH < 5, temperature > 50 °C, salinity > 1.0 mol/L). When microbes mediated in the CO2–brine–sandstone interaction, the CO2 solubility-trapping was enhanced. The more biomass of microbe added, the more amount of CO2 dissolved and trapped into the water. Consequently, the corrosion of feldspars and clay minerals such as chlorite was improved in relative short-term CO2–brine–sandstone interaction, providing a favorable condition for CO2 mineral-trapping. Through SEM images and EDS analyses, secondary minerals such as transition-state calcite and crystal siderite were observed, further indicating that the microbes played a positive role in CO2 mineral trapping. As such, bioaugmentation of indigenous microbes would be a promising technology to enhance the CO2 capture and storage in such deep saline aquifer like Erdos, China.

Introduction

The fourth IPCC report stated with ever-more certainty that anthropogenic emission of CO2 have been made primarily responsible for global warming (Ebigbo et al., 2010, IPCC, 2007). Thus, the reduction of potential CO2 in the atmosphere becomes obligatory to mitigate global warming (Frerichs et al., 2013). Recently, carbon capture and geological storage (CCS) is widely considered as a promising technology to reduce CO2 emission to the atmosphere (Benson and Cole, 2008, Metz et al., 2005a, Metz et al., 2005b, Portier and Rochelle, 2005). Potential geological reservoirs for CCS are depleted gas and oil reservoir, un-mineable coal seam formations and deep saline aquifers (Benson and Cole, 2008, Krüger et al., 2011). Particularly, deep saline aquifers are preferred and well-documented due to its large storage capacity, ubiquity, and potential for carbonate mineral trapping (Bachu and Adams, 2003, Goldberg et al., 2010, Goldberg et al., 2008, McGrail et al., 2006, Bergman, 1995). However, it may take a thousand years or longer to undergo mineral trapping in the deep saline aquifers (Metzker, 2005).

In the view of storage security, it is significant to reduce the time scale of mineral trapping (Cunningham et al., 2011, Naganuma et al., 2011). Microorganisms would be of interest, because they are predominant in earth biosphere, especially in deep saline aquifers. Many important processes in geological systems are partly catalyzed by microorganisms (Whitman et al., 1998). Therefore, it’s essential to investigate the potential role of microorganisms in the CO2 sequestration. Mitchell et al. (2009) proposed that biofilms could enhance geologic sequestration of supercritical CO2 and reduce leakage of CO2 by its plugging channels among rocks. Subsequent researches also demonstrated the potential effect of biofilms on the CO2 solubility and CO2 mineral trapping (Mitchell et al., 2010, Cunningham et al., 2009, Morozova et al., 2011). Recently, the microbial community was investigated in the CO2 injection or leakage environment. The microbial community variation of anaerobic and acidophilic microorganisms was found in CO2 leakage soil environment (Oppermann et al., 2010). Then H2-oxidising bacteria (Hydrogenophaga sp., Acidovorax sp., Ralstonia sp., Pseudomonas sp.), thiosulfate-oxidizing bacteria (Diaphorobacter sp.) and biocorrosive thermophilic microorganisms were detected in depleted gas reservoir (Morozova et al., 2011) and the Chromohalobacter marismortui, Halobacillus trueperi etc. were identified in deep saline aquifers with CO2 injection (Kirk et al., 2012, Krüger et al., 2011, Naganuma et al., 2011, Wang et al., 2012). These findings proved the potential growth of microorganisms in the extreme environment with long-term exposure of high CO2 concentration, and their potential effect on the CO2 solubility and mineral trapping. However, there were still few researches to evaluate the contribution of the specific indigenous microorganism to the CO2 solubility and mineral trapping in the CO2-brine- rock interaction.

To address some of the above-mentioned issues, experimental study focusing on the evaluation of CO2 solubility-trapping and mineral-trapping by microbial mediated process was investigated in this study. The objectives of this study are (1) to verify the potential growth of microorganisms under the extreme environment such as CO2 injection environment (pH < 5, temperature > 50 °C and salinity > 1.0 mol/L); (2) to evaluate the role of specific indigenous microorganisms in the CO2 solubility-trapping and mineral-trapping in the CO2–brine–sandstone interaction.

Section snippets

Experimental set-up

The experimental set-up in this study was shown in Fig. 1. Supercritical CO2 with 99.5% purity was injected into stainless steel reactors (with a volume of 1 L) via a booster pump and the samples were collected by a sample basket. The experimental condition was controlled by thermometer and pressure gauge.

Experimental materials

CO2 gas: CO2 gases were provided by Jv-yang Gases Company in China. Invert the gases cylinders and take out supercritical of CO2 by a liquid boost pump in the experiment.

Potential growth of microorganisms under the extreme environments

Three experimental sets (temperature, pH and salinity) were conducted in flasks to investigate the potential growth of indigenous microorganisms under the extreme environments. Certain quantity of microorganism in the logarithmic growth phase was inoculated into each flask with CO2 filled headspace and cultured in thermostatic incubator for 68 h. Then the biomass was measured by spread-plate method.

CO2 solubility-trapping and mineral-trapping in microbial mediated CO2–brine–sandstone interaction

The experiments with different microbial biomass of 0, 2.3 × 106, 7.0 × 106 and 11.7 × 107 CFU/mL

Potential growth of microbes under extreme environment

The pH of deep aquifer water could reach 4–5 when suddenly exposed to large amount of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2), consequently affecting the metabolic activity of microorganisms in the deep saline aquifers (Cunningham et al., 1997, Kirk et al., 2012). Afterwards, the pH in CO2 injected deep aquifer gradually increased up to 6–7 during long-term CO2–brine–sandstone interaction. In this study, the best pH for the growth of microorganisms was 5, verifying that the three isolated microbes

Conclusions

From our experiments, we can conclude that indigenous microbes isolated from a deep saline aquifer could adapt and keep relatively high activity under extreme environment. When microbes mediated in the CO2–brine–sandstone interaction, the CO2 solubility-trapping was enhanced to some extent. Correspondingly, the corrosion of feldspars and clay minerals such as chlorite was accelerated, providing a favorable condition for CO2 mineral-trapping. Secondary minerals such as transition-state calcite

Acknowledgements

The present work was funded by China Geological Survey working Project (Grant No. 12120113006300), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41302182) and National Key Technology R&D Program - China (Grant No. 2012BAJ25B10).

References (39)

Cited by (21)

  • Effect of CO<inf>2</inf> on biogeochemical reactions and microbial community composition in bioreactors with deep groundwater and basalt

    2022, Science of the Total Environment
    Citation Excerpt :

    Microbial reactions that consume hydrogen ions can increase solubility trapping by converting CO2 into carbonate alkalinity (Kirk et al., 2013). Moreover, alkalinity and biomass generation can increase mineral and structural trapping of CO2 by increasing the saturation state of carbonate minerals and providing surfaces for mineral nucleation (Kirk et al., 2013; Li et al., 2017; Mitchell et al., 2010, 2013; Zhao et al., 2014). These contributions to CO2 trapping can be leveraged in microbial biotechnology to improve GCS reservoir performance (Mitchell et al., 2010, 2013; Park et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2014).

  • Geological CO<inf>2</inf> sequestration in saline aquifers: Implication on potential solutions of China's power sector

    2017, Resources, Conservation and Recycling
    Citation Excerpt :

    In addition to high pressure in GCS, the effects of microbes and chemical component in brine on the CO2 solubility have been explored (Zhao et al., 2014). An experimental study in Erdos aquifers field shows that the indigenous microbes of the aquifer including Klebsiella, Clostridium, and Plesiomonas species in pores constrict CO2 mobility, which cause the CO2 dissolution to increase and result in lowering CO2 leakage from migration (Zhao et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014). The effects of the brine chemical component on CO2 solubility have been studied using synthetic brine samples obtained from a monitoring well based on five sandstone group formations in a shenhua GCS project site, in the Erdos Basin, Inner Mongolia, China (Yanchang, Heshanggou, Liujiagou, Shiqianfeng, and Shanxi Group formation).

  • Utilization of carbon dioxide as an alternative to urea in biocementation

    2016, Construction and Building Materials
    Citation Excerpt :

    This technology promises mitigation of global warming through carbon capture and storage [10–12]. Few studies have recently reported successful generation of calcium carbonates through supplementation of CO2 and NaHCO3 in calcium rich environments through microbial CA routes [9,11,13]. Application of CA producing and carbonate generating bacterial cells into concrete structures not only lead to improvement of their properties but also help in mitigation of high atmospheric carbon dioxide along with creating alternative pathway for production of carbonates without urea.

  • Micrographical, minerological and nano-mechanical characterisation of microbial carbonates from urease and carbonic anhydrase producing bacteria

    2016, Ecological Engineering
    Citation Excerpt :

    This is due to the immediate dissolution of CO2 into water forming carbonic acid and dissociating into hydrogen ions and bicarbonates. Microbial metabolism also generates significant amount of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) which plays a role in CO2 solubility trapping (Zhao et al., 2014). Fujita et al. (2000) reported that higher solubility trapping of gaseous CO2 has confounded impact on resulting pH change which might be the case in this study also.

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text