Acoustic Emissions Sensing for Tracing Carbon Dioxide Movement in Caprock of a Carbon Capture Utilizations and Storage System (CCUS) Final Technical Report

Summary

This final technical report details research aimed at developing a non-invasive acoustic-emission (AE)-based technology to track CO2 movement in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) systems. The core objective was to detect Haines jumps AEs in a high-pressure supercritical CO2 environment (above 1,200 psi and 40 °C) using various acoustic sensors, including P&S piezoelectric disks (up to 2 Msps), EDAS (up to 16 kHz), and interferometer sensors (200 ksps). Despite successful detection of these AEs in ambient water-sand tests at frequencies in the kHz range, no convincing evidence of Haines jumps AEs was found in the scCO2 + brine system across Liver Rock (900-1,200 mD permeability) and Kentucky sandstone (0.14 mD permeability) cores. The conclusion suggests that the high acoustic background from the experimental setup likely masked the low-amplitude Haines jumps signals, necessitating future modifications to the experimental procedure for better signal-to-noise ratio.

Key Facts

Source Document

https://example-government.gov/policy-document-link