Assesment of Hydrogen Rock Interaction During Geological Storage of CH4-H2 Mixtures

Renewables suffer from fluctuating energy generation, which means that they generate energy overspills during beneficial weather conditions which, due to lack of large scale storage options, cannot be used at a later point but is wasted. A viable option would be to convert the energy into hydrogen and to store it in existing porous subsurface formations. To assess the influence of hydrogen rock interaction during underground storage of natural gas hydrogen mixtures in porous subsurface formations, a geochemical gibbs free energy simulation was done. The simulation was conducted for the mineral assembly of two existing porous subsurface formations. The model showed that hydrogen increases the pH, and therefore changes the mineral composition of the reservoir rock by dissolving dolomite and precipitating calcite and talc. Additional investigations included crystalline mine rals which were not affected and clay minerals which could not be assessed as reliable data for these minerals is not yet available. Finally the stability of sulphides was assessed to rule out the possible generation of H2S. It was found that under subsurface conditions, sulphides will stay stable