Map showing the areas in New Mexico with volcanic rocks of different ages. 这些火山 油田是二氧化碳储存的潜在场所. 马特·齐默绘制的地图.

索科罗,N.M. -- The New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR) is one of three collaborators on a project funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) to study a novel 固碳技术. NMBGMR，以及地球与环境部 Science and the Petroleum Recovery 研究 Center at 365彩票在线过滤 (NMT), will explore the feasibility of a relatively new form of CO2 sequestration, one that has 提供永久碳储存的潜力.

“The sort of ‘classic style’ of 碳封存 is to take CO2 and just pump that into the little porous areas in rocks like sandstone,” explains 马特·齐默, 调查局测绘部门的临时主管. “毛孔非常小，只有亚毫米 type of stuff — but over the scale of an entire basin, there’s potentially a lot of 体积有. Ideally, the porous rocks are surrounded by non-porous rocks, and the CO2 will dissolve in groundwater and stay there for a very long time.”

但这种方法至少有一个缺点. “因为你在注入本质上 a fluid, it can just leak back 出 in some scenarios,” says Zimmerer.

A new method of 碳封存 and 存储 might overcome this challenge. 某些 rocks that contain high amounts of calcium or magnesium — like basalt, a type of volcanic rock that is common in New Mexico — have the potential to provide long-term carbon 存储. When CO2 is pumped into such rocks, the carbon can react with the calcium (in the case of basalt) and form carbonate minerals, a process known as carbon mineralization.

“Turns 出 basalt has a lot of calcium in it,” says Zimmerer, “and the idea there is to pump carbon dioxide into a calcium-rich rock and actually precipitate a mineral 出. Then it’s locked up as a solid — chemically — and it can’t leak 出 because it’s 在晶体结构中.“将二氧化碳与水混合，然后将其泵入地下 也加快了矿化过程.

Zimmerer, a volcanologist by training, has done extensive research on basalts in New 这项工作让他参与了这个项目.

“For the last 10 years or so I’ve been studying these basalts because they’re some of the youngest volcanic rocks in New Mexico, and I’ve been trying to understand them 从火山危险的角度来看.”

该研究的初步结果发表在《365彩票在线计划》杂志上 《365彩票在线过滤》2021年冬季刊. Now, that knowledge will be applied to find areas in New Mexico that are best suited 利用这种新技术来储存碳. “有一些研究给出了不同的结论 minerals in basalts or different structures might make them better or worse for this 封存技术. 我们需要找到有足够材料的地方 for a large-scale project, and then see if there’s enough of the right kind of material ——一个金发女孩的情况.”

1美元的NMT合作者.能源部拨款200万美元采集玄武岩样本， look at the chemistry and minerology, and perform small-scale tests using the new 封存技术. “初步研究表明，几年后， 90% of the CO2 is still locked in the rock structure,” Zimmerer says. “它不会走 to be something that solves all the carbon problems on the planet, but it’s another 工具在我们的包里.”