An Experimental Study on Bio-Clogging in Porous Media during Geothermal Water Reinjection

To study the mechanism of bio-clogging in a porous medium during the reinjection of geothermal water and to improve reinjection efficiency, an indoor one-dimensional reinjection experiment was conducted based on the geological model of the geothermal reinjection demonstration project in Dezhou City. The biological process of porous media clogging was investigated by analyzing the variation of permeability within the medium, the main indexes of nutrient salts, and the content of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). High-throughput sequencing, based on 16S rRNA, was used to analyze the characteristics and succession of microbial communities during the reinjection of geothermal water. The results of the study show that significant bio-clogging occurs during the reinjection of geothermal water, with an increase in the heterogeneity of the thermal reservoir medium, and a decrease in permeability. The extent of clogging gradually reduces with an increase in seepage path. Thus, thermal reservoir clogging is more serious closer to the water inlet. With an increase in the duration of reinjection, the permeability of the porous medium undergoes three stages: “rapid”, “decline-slow”, and “decrease-stable”. The results show that the richness and diversity of the bacterial community increase and decrease, respectively, during the reinjection process. Bacterial community succession occurs, and the bacterial communities mainly include the Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes phyla. Pseudomonas and Devosia are respectively the dominant bacteria in the early and late stages of geothermal water reinjection.

Hydromechanical behaviors of andesite under different stress states during fluid injection

Water reinjection into the formation is an indispensable operation in many energy engineering practices.This operation involves a complex hydromechanical(HM)coupling process and sometimes even causes unpredictable disasters,such as induced seismicity.It is acknowledged that the relative magnitude and direction of the principal stresses significantly influence the HM behaviors of rocks during injection.However,due to the limitations of current testing techniques,it is still difficult to comprehensively conduct laboratory injection tests under various stress conditions,such as in triaxial extension stress states.To this end,a numerical study of HM changes in rocks during injection under different stress states is conducted.In this model,the saturated rock is first loaded to the target stress state under drainage conditions,and then the stress state is maintained and water is injected from the top to simulate the formation injection operation.Particular attention is given to the difference in HM changes under triaxial compression and extension stresses.This includes the differences in the pore pressure propagation,mean effective stress,volumetric strain,and stress-induced permeability.The numerical results demonstrate that the differential stress will significantly affect the HM behaviors of rocks,but the degree of influence is different under the two triaxial stress states.The HM changes caused by the triaxial compression stress states are generally greater than those of extension,but the differences decrease with increasing differential stress,indicating that the increase in the differential stress will weaken the impact of the stress state on the HM response.In addition,the shear failure potential of fracture planes with various inclination angles is analyzed and summarized under different stress states.It is recommended that engineers could design suitable injection schemes according to different tectonic stress fields versus fault occurrence to reduce the risk of injection-induced seismicity.