Focus – Developing subsurface H2 storage reservoirs, novel vessels, and the distribution systems to fuel next-generation transportation.
Technical Thrusts
- Finding a good reservoir and overlying seal combination, assessing flow properties, avoiding too high of pressure, evaluating reservoir capacity, understanding risks, limiting leakage (costs and environmental impacts), and investigating monitoring options by optimizing cost and efficiency.
- Determining geochemical rock-water-dissolved gas interactions.
- Determining the engineering limits on H2 transportation via pipelines or as liquid H2.
- Evaluating the physicochemical-mechanical effects of H2 on fracture growth in rock and the effect of H2-water-mineral interactions on flow properties of porous rock formations of varying mineral composition.
- Developing conformable vessel technology for H2 storage by studying the right resin and polymer for the vessel core and materials with low permeability that could be fabricated using current technology.
- Understanding the properties of H2-related fluids and the generation and storage of H2 in oil reservoirs.
- Predictions of sealing capacity and assessment of seal failure.
- Computational modeling and experimental measurements of multiphase flow properties of rocks during reactive transport. Experimental tools include nuclear magnetic resonance, capillary pressure, and gas sorption measurements for quantification of rock microstructure. Computational tools include flow models like lattice-Boltzmann and pore network modeling and machine learning-based models of rock properties on a geospatial and facies-by-facies basis.
- Adaptation of a non-isothermal, compositional gas reservoir simulator for H2 storage and withdrawal from depleted oil/gas reservoirs or aquifers with consideration for geological integrity and rock-fluid/fluid-fluid interaction. Ultimate development of a robust, fast screening tool to select suitable geologic H2 storage reservoirs.
- Computational simulations to model the behavior of fluids in geological formations, including numerical solution of partial differential systems with application to the modeling of subsurface flows and parallel computation. Modeling evaluates hydraulic fractures and poromechanics in poroelastic and porous media.
- Flow assurance and well integrity for hydrogen storage and distribution.
- Downhole and surface multiphase multicomponent separations.
Research Leaders
Jean-Philippe Nicot, Thrusts 1, 2
Vaibhav Bahadur, Thrust 3
Peter Eichhubl, Thrust 4
Michael Lewis, Thrust 5
Ryosuke Okuno, Thrust 6
Hugh Daigle, Thrusts 7, 8
Mojdeh Delshad, Thrust 9
Kamy Sepehrnoori, Thrust 9
Mary Wheeler, Thrust 10
Quoc Nguyen, Thrust 11, 12
