Vapor-Pressure Lowering in Geothermal Systems

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Abstract
The water vapor-pressure lowering phenomenon in porous media was investigated for a range of temperatures by measuring vapor pressure vs. mass of water adsorbed in consolidated sandstone cores and unconsolidated silica sands. Experimental results showed that the mass of water adsorbed on the rock surface is much more than the amount of pore steam. Results also revealed that the water adsorption is caused mainly by micropores in the porous medium. Measurement of the mass of methane and ethane adsorbed on dry rocks showed that the amount of adsorption is not great in comparison with the pore gas. It was found that adsorption data for water/sandstone core studies could be normalized with respect to temperature. Although this appears not to have been reported previously, it does agree in principle with findings for solid powders with micropores. Another interesting result was that reanalysis of previous studies of capillarity in sandstones indicates that experimental data probably were influenced mostly by adsorption.

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