Convective carbon dioxide dissolution in a closed porous medium at high-pressure under real-gas conditions

We combine modeling and measurements to investigate the dynamics of convective carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolution in a pressure-volume-temperature cell, extending a recent study by Wen et al. (JFM, 2018) at low-pressure under ideal-gas conditions to high-pressure and real-gas conditions. Pressure-dependent compressibility factor and solubility are added in the ideal-gas law and the Henry's law, respectively, to model the evolution of CO2 concentration in the gas phase and at the interface. Simple ordinary-differential-equation models are developed to capture the mean behavior of the convecting system at large Rayleigh number and then verified by using direct numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. Our analysis provides a new direction for determination and validation of the convective dissolution flux of CO2 in porous media systems.