The PhD defence and trial lecture are fully digital and streamed using Zoom. The host of the session will moderate the technicalities while the chair of the defence will moderate the disputation. It is possible to be present at the disputation in auditorium 1.
Trial lecture
CCS monitoring strategies complementing noble gasses - theory, methods, devices, applications, and challenges
Conferral summary (in Norwegian)
Under fangst og geologisk lagring av karbon brukes det overvåkingssystemer for å oppdage eventuelle lekkasjer, selv om det er usannsynlig. I dette doktorgradsarbeidet fokuseres det på bruk av edelgasser for å identifisere slike CO2-lekkasjer. Med bruk av et nytt instrument, modellering og et injeksjonseksperiment, blir det fastslått at edelgassene er velegnet til overvåking av lagret CO2, og at utvikling av målingsmetoder for edelgasser har åpnet og vil åpne flere muligheter til å fremme vår forståelse av CO2 lagring og overvåkning.
Main research findings
Popular scientific article about Weber’s dissertation:
Applicability of Noble Gases for CO2 Capture and Storage Monitoring
Carbon capture and storage (CCS), is a climate change mitigation technology that is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. Monitoring strategies are put into place to ensure safe operations and to provide information on the behaviour of the injected CO2. Previous studies indicate that noble gases can play an important role in these monitoring strategies, but there are still unknowns in the use of them. Through the application of recently developed noble gas measurement technology, modelling and an injection experiment, this thesis advances the understanding of CO2-noble gas systems. It is found that noble gas concentrations in captured CO2 vary significantly at different capture plants and it is necessary to perform repeated sampling to describe the noble gas content holistically.
At all plants, the CO2 has low noble gas concentrations; therefore, injected CO2 will take up noble gases from the pore water of the storage reservoir. This uptake will change the noble gas concentrations so dramatically that leakages into the atmosphere and natural gas reservoirs become identifiable. The injection experiment confirms the exchange with the pore water and confirms that noble gases, in contrast to CO2, behave conservatively. This means that noble gases have an early warning effect, which can be utilized by adding noble gases to the injected CO2. However, this is currently uneconomical.
Photo and other information:
Press photo: Ulrich Wolfgang Weber, portrait; 500px. Photo: Private
