Professor Martin Blunt

Imperial College London

Biography

​Martin Blunt joined Imperial College London in June 1999 as a Professor of Petroleum Engineering. He served as Head of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering from 2006-2011. Previous to this he was Associate Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Stanford University in California. Before joining Stanford in 1992, he was a research reservoir engineer with BP in Sunbury-on-Thames. He holds MA and PhD (1988) degrees in theoretical physics from Cambridge University.  Professor Blunt's research interests are in multiphase flow in porous media with applications to geological carbon storage, oil and gas recovery, and contaminant transport and clean-up in polluted aquifers. He performs experimental, theoretical and numerical research into many aspects of flow and transport in porous systems, including pore-scale modelling of displacement processes, and large-scale simulation using streamline-based methods.

All sessions by Professor Martin Blunt

Pore-scale storage mechanisms in carbon dioxide storage and application to carbonates
02:15 PM

The mechanisms that affect the long-term fate of carbon dioxide in the subsurface are discussed with an emphasis on pore-scale imaging studies to study capillary trapping and dissolution processes in carbonates. It is shown that capillary trapping can trap a significant fraction of the injected carbon dioxide even in heterogeneous carbonate formations. The extension of the work to carbon dioxide storage into oil fields is discussed. We demonstrate that at near-miscible conditions and in mixed-wet or oil-wet reservoirs the carbon dioxide is intermediate-wet and that water is the most non-wetting phase. The implications for storage and recovery are discussed, as well as suggestions for field-scale modelling of three-phase flow processes.

Professor Martin Blunt

Imperial College London

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