PARAMETERIZING THE REACTIVITY OF THE GLASSY MESOSTASIS IN BASALT RESERVOIRS

Commercial scale deployment of subsurface carbon sequestration in basalt reservoirs in the United States requires comprehensive reservoir simulations. These reservoir simulations must accurately predict the fate and transport of the injected CO₂, and account for the reactivity between the injected CO₂, reservoir formation water, and each mineral phase. Current simulation efforts do not account for the reactivity of water-bearing supercritical CO₂. Additionally, the reactivity of the glassy mesostasis, often considered the most reactive material in basalt, is poorly accounted for in these simulations. The present work overviews the range compositions of the basalt glassy mesostasis and factors controlling its dissolution, including a sensitivity analysis of composition and overall phase abundance. This work additionally evaluates the dissolution and carbon mineralization behavior of the glassy mesostasis in water-bearing super critical CO₂ using synthetic glass proxies, parameterizing its reactivity for use in future reservoir simulations.