Pore-scale controls on calcite dissolution rates from flow-through laboratory and numerical experiments.

A combination of experimental, imaging, and modeling techniques were applied to investigate the pore-scale transport and surface reaction controls on calcite dissolution under elevated pCO2 conditions. The laboratory experiment consisted of the injection of a solution at 4 bar pCO2 into a capillary tube packed with crushed calcite. A high resolution pore-scale numerical model was used to simulate the experiment based on a computational domain consisting of reactive calcite, pore space, and the capillary wall constructed from volumetric X-ray microtomography images.