CO₂ sequestration and CH₄ extraction from unmineable coal seams in Singrauli coalfield

ABSTRACT

The country’s energy demand is experiencing rapid growth, and fossil fuels remain the primary resources to meet this increasing need. However, global warming poses a significant challenge for governments and industries worldwide. To address this issue, utilizing methane as a fossil fuel and implementing CO₂ capture and sequestration can prove to be effective mitigation strategies. This paper presents an innovative idea to utilize unmineable coal seams in the Singrauli coal field for CO₂ sequestration while extracting associated CBM to offset the cost of the sequestration process. The findings reveal that the field has great potential for CO₂ sequestration. The estimated average maximum sorption capacities of CO₂ and CH₄ in the coal seams under in situ conditions of the basin are 39.50 m³/t and 11.15 m³/t, respectively. The total maximum sorption capacities of CO₂ and CH₄ in the potential coal seams are estimated to be 10,758.00 Mm³ and 3,215.00 Mm³, respectively. These results indicate that the unmineable coal seams in the Singrauli coalfield hold potential for CO₂ sequestration and the extraction of available CBM from the coal seams.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy demand
• global warming
• coal bed methane (CBM)
• carbon dioxide (CO₂) sequestration
• Langmuir Isotherm

Acknowledgements

This work the PhD research work of the first author. We thank CMPDI for providing the technical support. Finally, the authors wish to thank UPES Dehradun for encouragement and laboratory facilities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).