Abstract
Geosequestration of carbon dioxide in basaltic rock formations is considered to have the potential to safely and permanently store significant quantities of this greenhouse gas and thereby mitigate its potential global warming effect. The success of this storage method is primarily dependent on the wettability behaviour of the rock-water-CO2 system, which significantly affects fluid distribution, fluid transport, storage capacity and containment security. This study investigates the wettability performance of several Western Australian altered basaltic rocks, of similar geochemistry, porosity and inter-connection. The wettability behaviour of the basaltic materials is assessed using water containing ions that have been leached from the rock samples used in this investigation (Synthetic Formational Water). Under realistic geo-storage conditions, most samples exhibited intermediate -wet behaviour at pressures of 10 to 80 bar and a temperature of 50 °C. Further increase in pressure from 80 to 100 bar at 50 °C changed the wettability of the altered basaltic rock samples with most samples changing from an intermediate-wet state to weakly CO2-wet state, while the other sample maintained this intermediate-wet at 100 bar and 50 °C temperature. This study highlights the potential of Western Australian altered basaltic rocks to be used for the mineral storage of CO2.
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
Volume
149
Publication Title
International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control
Publisher
Elsevier
School
Centre for Sustainable Energy and Resources
Funders
Edith Cowan University / CSIRO Australian Resources Research Centre
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Akanji, S. P., Sedev, R., Esteban, L., Giwelli, A., Beardsmore, T., Howard, H., Sarout, J., Keshavarz, A., & Iglauer, S. (2025). Towards carbon geosequestration: comparing the wettability performance of Western Australian altered basaltic rock/CO2/water systems. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 149, 104554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2025.104554