Mineral Reaction Kinetics during Aciding of the Gaoyuzhuang Carbonate Geothermal Reservoir in the Xiong’an New Area, Northern China

Abstract

There are abundant geothermal resources in the Xiong’an New Area, China. Drilling has revealed a greater potential in the deep Gaoyuzhuang geothermal reservoir. However, the reservoir required acidification to increase its water production. In this study, three types of core samples with different mineral compositions from different depths in the target boreholes were selected for acid rock reaction experiments at the temperature of 40 °C, 60 °C, 80 °C and 100 °C, and pressure of 30 MPa. The kinetics of the acid rock reaction of the major minerals were modeled based on the transitional state theory. The kinetic parameters were obtained by comparing the modelling and experimental results. The results show that the lithology of the Gaoyuzhuang reservoir is primarily dolomite. The dissolution ratio for 15 wt.% HCl reached 84.1% on average for the rock fragments. Temperature has a significant effect on the dissolution rate of the minerals. In the presence of HCl (acidic mechanism), the reaction rate constants of the dolomite, calcite and illite reached 2.4 × 10−4 mol/m2/s, 5.3 × 10−1 mol/m2/s and 9.5 × 10−2 mol/m2/s, respectively. The results of this study provide the basic parameters for the design and evaluation of field acidizing.