RII Track-4: NSF: Fundamental study on hydrogen flow in porous media during repetitive drainage-imbibition processes and upscaling for underground energy storage

RII Track-4：NSF：重复排水-自吸过程中多孔介质中氢气流动的基础研究以及地下储能的升级

• 批准号: 2327317
• 负责人: Seunghee Kim
• 金额: $ 29.01万
• 依托单位: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-01 至 2025-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2327317&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RII; Track; NSF; Fundamental; study

Long-term grid-scale energy storage technologies are urgently needed for the United States and the rest of the world. In addition, the net-zero carbon emission objective has promoted transforming carbon-heavy industry sectors with cleaner energy resources. Hydrogen (H2) has been attracting global attention as one of the primary future low-carbon energy carriers, and underground hydrogen storage (UHS) has been identified as a promising option to address these national challenges. However, a thorough understanding of multiphase fluid transport involving H2 and other fluids in a porous geologic storage reservoir is critically needed for the success of UHS. This Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-4 EPSCoR Research Fellows project will provide a fellowship to an Assistant Professor and training for a graduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). The fellowship will greatly enhance the research and education capacity of the PI’s home institution by replicating Idaho National Laboratory (INL)’s experimental study platform on hydrogen production and storage and the multi-scale and multi-physics numerical study platform at UNL. Further, the expected research findings will be incorporated into PI’s newly developed courses on Multiphysics numerical modeling. The fellowship will also enable a graduate student to visit the INL scientists along with the PI, thus helping train a STEM workforce. At the regional level, the fellowship will boost collaborative research with Nebraska-based hydrogen producers, public power companies, and many faculty members at UNL and other universities in Nebraska.The overall goal of this EPSCoR RII Track-4 fellowship is to build the research capacity of the PI and of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) that will enable the advancement of the fundamental understanding of H2 migration in porous materials during repeated injection-and-extraction cycles via pore-scale experimental studies, pore-scale numerical modeling, and upscaled reservoir-scale simulations. To accomplish this goal, the PI will collaborate with scientists at the host site, Idaho National Laboratory (INL), to achieve two research objectives: (1) elucidate the H2 transport, storage, and loss in porous media during repetitive drainage-imbibition processes at the fundamental pore scale and (2) upscale the repetitive H2 injection-extraction processes to reservoir-scale modeling by leveraging the existing gas injection/extraction and storage research portfolio at INL. For these efforts, the PI will leverage the fellowship to learn new techniques, develop new collaborations, and advance existing research collaborations by visiting INL, along with a graduate student. The proposed research will be among the first to examine in-depth the saturation of gases and liquids, relative permeability, and their relations, as well as diffusion and dissolution of hydrogen, during repeated injection-extraction cycles at the fundamental pore-scale level. In addition, the proposed numerical study will help to advance our understanding on fluid dynamics for H2-cushion gas-brine systems at different scales. Lastly, this fellowship will shift the PI’s research toward transformative new directions aligned with geologic energy storage.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

美国和世界其他地区迫切需要长期的电网规模储能技术。此外，净零碳排放目标推动了用更清洁的氢（H2）资源改造高碳工业部门。作为未来主要的低碳能源载体之一，一直受到全球关注，地下储氢（UHS）已被认为是解决这些国家挑战的一个有前途的选择。然而，对涉及氢气和其他物质的多相流体输送的透彻了解。多孔流体地质储库对于 UHS 的成功至关重要。该研究基础设施改进 Track-4 EPSCoR 研究人员项目将为内布拉斯加大学林肯分校 (UNL) 的助理教授提供奖学金并为研究生提供培训。通过复制爱达荷国家实验室（INL）的氢气生产和储存实验研究平台以及UNL的多尺度和多物理数值研究平台，将大大增强PI所在机构的研究和教育能力。研究成果将被纳入 PI 新开发的多物理场数值建模课程中。该奖学金还将使研究生能够与 PI 一起访问 INL 科学家，从而帮助培训区域层面的 STEM 劳动力。与内布拉斯加州的氢气生产商、公共电力公司以及内布拉斯加州大学和内布拉斯加州其他大学的许多教员一起进行研究。 EPSCoR RII Track-4 奖学金的总体目标是建设 PI 和内布拉斯加州大学的研究能力内布拉斯加州林肯 (UNL) 将通过孔隙尺度实验研究、孔隙尺度数值模拟和升级的储层尺度模拟，促进对重复注入和提取循环过程中氢气在多孔材料中运移的基本理解。为了实现这一目标，PI 将与主办地点爱达荷国家实验室 (INL) 的科学家合作，以实现两个研究目标：(1) 阐明重复过程中多孔介质中的 H2 传输、存储和损失(2) 利用 INL 现有的注气/萃取和封存研究组合，将重复的 H2 注入-萃取过程升级到储层规模建模。与一名研究生一起访问 INL 来学习新技术、开展新的合作并推进现有的研究合作。拟议的研究将是第一个深入研究气体和液体的饱和度、相对渗透率和渗透率的研究。此外，所提出的数值研究将有助于加深我们对氢垫气-盐水系统流体动力学的理解。最后，该奖学金将把 PI 的研究转向与地质能源存储相一致的变革性新方向。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。