Subsurface Fluid Storage, Recovery, and Drilling in Porous Rock
This research community investigates the physical and chemical behavior of fluids—specifically hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbons—within underground rock formations. The work focuses on how these fluids are stored, recovered, or used to enhance oil production, with a strong emphasis on the pore-scale interactions that determine capacity and efficiency.
The recurring themes center on the engineering of drilling fluids for tight sandstone and shale reservoirs, particularly in the Ordos and Sichuan basins. A significant portion of the literature addresses the storage of hydrogen and carbon dioxide in depleted gas reservoirs, saline aquifers, and coal seams. Key technical challenges include managing interfacial tension, understanding pore structure, and preventing hydrate formation. Methods range from molecular dynamics simulations to machine learning models for predicting fluid behavior. The work is heavily applied, targeting specific geological settings like deep coalbed methane and low-permeability oil reservoirs, while also exploring the fundamental physics of fluid-rock interactions in porous media.
The community is most prominent in research tracked for Krypton, where it represents 5.3% of all output, followed by Argon at 4.8% and Mercury at 2.4%. In terms of raw volume, Carbon contributes the highest number of papers with 2,678 entries, though this accounts for only 1.6% of total Carbon research.
The group comprises 30,654 papers, published primarily in Fuel, The Journal of Chemical Physics, and Fluid Phase Equilibria. Recent work continues to focus on the dual use of depleted reservoirs for carbon sequestration and hydrogen storage, as well as the development of advanced drilling fluids for high-temperature and high-salinity environments.