Abstract
“Blue energy” could be produced by exploiting the large salinity gradient between geothermal fluids and freshwater through a SaltPower system. This study is an attempt to select the most favorable chemicals to avoid injectivity issues when a diluted geothermal fluid resulting from the SaltPower system is returned to the reservoir. Three synthetic chelating agents (oxalic acid, EDTA, and EDDS) and one natural (humic acid) were evaluated through speciation simulations and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) experiments. The speciation simulation results indicate that the degree of complexing is highly dependent on pH and chelating agent type. The ITC experiments show that the total heat for the formation of soluble metal–ligand complexes in the rock + geothermal brine system follows: EDTA > EDDS > oxalic acid > humic acid. The simulations and calorimetry results suggest that EDTA could be used to avoid the precipitation of Fe(III) oxides and other minerals (e.g., calcite and dolomite) inside the porous media upon the reinjection of diluted geothermal brine coming from SaltPower electricity production.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 17 |
| Journal | Geothermal Energy |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Søren Damgaard, driftschef for Thisted Varmeforsyning, for providing the geothermal brine used in the isothermal titration calorimetry experiments presented in this work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
Keywords
- Chelating agents
- Geothermal brine
- Isothermal titration calorimetry
- SaltPower
- Speciation simulations