Geophysical methods are essential for exploration and monitoring of subsurface formations, e.g. in carbon dioxide sequestration or enhanced geothermal energy. One of the keys to their successful application is the knowledge of how the measured physical quantities are related to the desired reservoir parameters. The work presented in this thesis shows that the presence of carbon dioxide (CO2) in pore space gives rise to multiple processes all of which contribute to the electrical rock conductivity variation. Basically, three mechanisms take place: (1) CO2 partially replaces the pore water, which is equivalent to a decrease in water saturation. (2) CO2 chemically interacts with the pore water by dissolution and dissociation. These processes change both the chemical composition and the pH of the pore filling fluid. (3) The low-pH environment can give rise to mineral dissolution and/or precipitation processes and changes the properties of the grain-water interface. Investigations on the pore water phase show that the reactive nature of CO2 in all physical states significantly acts on the electrical conductivity of saline pore waters. The physico-chemical interaction appears in different manifestations depending mainly on the pore water composition (salinity, ion types) but also on both temperature and pressure. The complex behaviour includes a low- and a high-salinity regime originating from the conductivity increasing effect of CO2 dissociation, which is opposed by the conductivity decreasing effect of reduced ion activity caused by the enhanced mutual impediment of all solutes. These results are fundamental since the properties of the water phase significantly act on all conduction mechanisms in porous media. In order to predict the variation of pore water conductivity, both a semi-analytical formulation and an empirical relationship for correcting the pore water conductivity, which depends on salinity, pressure and temperature, are derived. The central part of the laboratory experiments covers the spectral complex conductivity of water-bearing sand during exposure to and flow-through by CO2 at pressures up to 30MPa and temperatures up to 80°C. It is shown that the impact of CO2 on the real part of conductivity of a clean quartz sand is dominated by the low- and high-salinity regime of the pore water. The obtained data further show that chemical interaction causes a reduction of interface conductivity, which could be related to the low pH in the acidic environment. This effect is described by a correction term, which is a constant value as a first approximation. When the impact of CO2 is taken into account, a correct reconstruction of fluid saturation from electrical measurements is possible. In addition, changes of the inner surface area, which are related to mineral dissolution or precipitation processes, can be quantified. Both the knowledge gained from the laboratory experiments and a new workflow for the description and incorporation of geological geometry models enable realistic finite element simulations. Those were conducted for three different electromagnetic methods applied in the geological scenario of a fictitious carbon dioxide sequestration site. The results show that electromagnetic methods can play an important role in monitoring CO2 sequestration. Compared to other geophysical methods, electromagnetic techniques are generally very sensitive to pore fluids. The proper configuration of sources and receivers for a suitable electromagnetic method that generates the appropriate current systems is essential. Its reactive nature causes CO2 to interact with a water-bearing porous rock in a much more complex manner than non-reactive gases. Without knowledge of the specific interactions between CO2 and rock, a determination of saturation and, consequently, a successful monitoring are possible only to a limited extend. The presented work provides fundamental laboratory investigations for the understanding of the electrical properties of rocks when the reactive gas CO2 enters the rock-water system. All laboratory results are put in the context of potential monitoring applications. The transfer from petrophysical investigations to the planning of an operational monitoring design by means of close-to-reality 3D FE simulations is accomplished.

We theoretically and experimentally investigate the impact of pore space structure, wettability, and surface roughness on the displacement front, trapping, and sweeping efficiency at low capillary numbers. The microstructure of (i) 2D geologically-realistic media (2D natural sand and sandstone), (ii) a topological 3D-2D-transformation (2D sand analog), and (iii) geometrically representative media (Delaunay Triangulation) were studied over a wide range of wettability from water-wet to oil-wet systems provided by using various fluid-pairs. We observed the transition (compact to fractal) in the displacement front caused by local instabilities identified by Cieplak and Robbins. The trapping efficiency of 2D natural microstructures showed a non-monotonous dependency on wettability, whereas a crossover from no trapping to maximal trapping was observed in 2D patterns of circular grains. For the first time, we compared identical experimental microstructures with simulation, capturing the key elements of the invasion process. We demonstrated that corner flows occur particularly in low-porosity media, where the smaller grain-grain distance hindered the corner-flow bridging. These insights could improve the CO2 geological storage and Enhanced Oil Recovery processes.

The mitigation of greenhouse gases, like CO2 is a challenging aspect for our society. A strategy to hamper the constant emission of CO2 is utilizing carbon capture and storage technologies. CO2 is sequestrated in subsurface reservoirs. However, these reservoirs harbor the risk of leakage and appropriate geophysical monitoring methods are needed. A crucial aspect of monitoring is the assignment of measured data to certain events occurring. Especially if changes in the measured data are small, suitable statistical methods are needed. In this thesis, a new statistical workflow based on cluster analysis is proposed to detect similar transient electromagnetic signals. The similarity criteria dynamic time warping, the autoregressive distance, and the normalized root-mean-square distance are investigated and evaluated with respect to the classic Euclidean norm. The optimal number of clusters is determined using the gap statistic and visualized with multidimensional scaling. To validate the clustering results, silhouette values are used. The statistical workflow is applied to a synthetic data set, a long-term monitoring data set and a repeat measurement at a pilot CO2-sequestration site in Brooks, Alberta.

Capillary trapping plays a central role in the geological storage of CO2, oil recovery, and water soil infiltration. The key aim of this study is to investigate the impact of surface properties (wettability, roughness, heterogeneous mineral composition) on the dynamics of quasi-static fluid displacement process and capillary trapping efficiency in porous medium. We concluded that for homogeneous wet smooth glass beads surfaces, a transition in fluid displacement pattern occurs from a compact (for θ < 90°; imbibition process) to a fractal front-pattern (for θ > 90°; drainage process) leading to a crossover in capillary trapping efficiency from zero to maximum. The impact of surface roughness on capillary trapping efficiency was also studied, and an opposite trends in terms of wettability dependency was observed. Rough natural sands surfaces depicts a non-monotonous wettability dependency, i.e. a transition from maximal trapping (for θ < 90°) to no-trapping occurs (at θ = 90°), followed by an increase to medium trapping (for θ > 90°). For a fractional-wet media, the percolating cluster of hydrophobic sediments (connected hydrophobic pathways) characterize the fluid displacement pattern and trapping efficiency.