TY - JOUR
T1 - Liquid nitrogen fracturing efficiency as a function of coal rank: A multi-scale tomographic study
AU - Akhondzadeh, Hamed
AU - Keshavarz, Alireza
AU - Awan, Faisal Ur Rahman
AU - Ali, Muhammad
AU - Al-Yaseri, Ahmed
AU - Liu, Changfu
AU - Yang, Yongfei
AU - Iglauer, Stefan
AU - Gurevich, Boris
AU - Lebedev, Maxim
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2021-08-27
Acknowledgements: The μ-CT measurements were performed using the μ-CT system of National Geo-sequestration Laboratory (NGL) of Australia; funding for this facility was provided by the Australian Federal Government. This work was supported by Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, with funding from the Australian Government and the Government of Western Australia. Moreover, the authors are grateful to Premier Coal Ltd. for providing the sub-bituminous coal samples. The coal petrographical, proximate and ultimate analysis was also performed by Bureau Veritas - Minerals Pty Ltd, Australia. The authors acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council through project DP190103260. Additionally, the authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51674280), and Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2019JQ21).
PY - 2021/7/31
Y1 - 2021/7/31
N2 - This study explored the potential of liquid nitrogen fracturing in three different coal ranks. X-ray computed tomography results in micro- (μ-CT) and macro (medical-CT) scales revealed a poor performance of LN2 fracturing in anthracite. In contrast, porosity evolution for bituminous and sub-bituminous coal in microscale was 14 % and 119 %, respectively. The porosity enhancement in macroscale for these coals was also significant. Interestingly, in both coals, thoroughgoing fracture planes originated from the initial cleat network following freezing. Furthermore, connectivity analysis through skeletonization and Euler number analysis suggested that sub-bituminous connectivity increased by 20-fold for small pores (
AB - This study explored the potential of liquid nitrogen fracturing in three different coal ranks. X-ray computed tomography results in micro- (μ-CT) and macro (medical-CT) scales revealed a poor performance of LN2 fracturing in anthracite. In contrast, porosity evolution for bituminous and sub-bituminous coal in microscale was 14 % and 119 %, respectively. The porosity enhancement in macroscale for these coals was also significant. Interestingly, in both coals, thoroughgoing fracture planes originated from the initial cleat network following freezing. Furthermore, connectivity analysis through skeletonization and Euler number analysis suggested that sub-bituminous connectivity increased by 20-fold for small pores (
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/670763
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1875510021003784
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85112348950&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jngse.2021.104177
DO - 10.1016/j.jngse.2021.104177
M3 - Article
SN - 1875-5100
VL - 95
SP - 104177
JO - Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering
JF - Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering
ER -