Experimental investigation of the influence of supercritical state on the relative permeability of Vosges sandstone

Abstract : Measurements of relative permeabilities involve complex and long experiments, especially when dealing with supercritical carbon dioxide at high pressures and temperatures. However, the development of CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) underlined the need of such experiments in order to carry-out the indispensable simulations of the behavior of deep saline aquifers or other geological formations subjected to carbon dioxide injection. In this article, we present the measurement of relative permeabilities of a sandstone with a new experimental set-up with the fluid pairs gaseous CO2/water and supercritical CO2/water. For highly permeable and non-reactive materials, the results are almost identical, showing little influence of the pressure, temperature, and physical state of the considered fluids on the obtained data.