Microbial Impacts of CCS: Potential Benefits and Problems During Geological CO2 Storage (Flexible Funding 2023)

Professor Sophie L Nixon, University of Manchester, was awarded funding in the UKCCSRC’s Flexible Funding 2023 call to look at “Microbial Impacts of CCS: Potential Benefits and Problems During Geological CO2 Storage”.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is considered crucial to the delivery of global 2050 Net Zero emissions targets, which are now a legal obligation for the UK. In order for CCS to succeed, CO₂ must be permanently stored in deep (>800m) geological formations, namely saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs, with target storage times in excess of 10,000 years (Alcalde, Flude et al. 2018).

It is well established that conventional oil and gas reservoirs can have significant issues with problematic microbial activity within the subsurface, leading to reservoir souring, biofouling at the injection well and also microbially-influenced corrosion (MIC) (Bodtker, Thorstenson et al. 2008, Johnson, Folwell et al. 2017, Skovhus, Eckert et al. 2017, Vigneron, Alsop et al. 2017). Therefore, in sites where there is already a significant, and costly, microbial presence, it would be remiss of the industry to not take into account the potential impacts of the subsurface microbiology once these depleted oil and gas reservoirs are repurposed for long-term CO₂ storage.

However, the metabolic reactions driven by CO₂ fixation in subsurface communities are not well understood, and could feasibly result in a net gain or loss of CO₂, production of methane, and microbially induced corrosion (Tyne, Barry et al. 2021, Tyne, Barry et al. 2023). This microbial activity could compromise the capacity, integrity and long-term safety of CO₂ storage sites. Alternatively, microbially-enhanced CO₂ sequestration could enhance the mineralization of CO₂ within the subsurface, improve the overall success of CCS operations and uncover novel ways to convert waste CO₂ into useful products (Matter, Stute et al. 2016, Trias, Menez et al. 2017, Bachleitner, Ata et al. 2023).

In this study, we aimed to take a first look at the response of a mature oil-field derived microbial community to a CO₂ saturated environment (Dutta, Smith et al. 2020). By utilising 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we were able to determine how the microbial community changed over the 12-month incubation period, and identify the proliferation of any potential problematic or beneficial microbial processes that could indicate potential shifts within the microbiome of depleted oil and gas reservoirs when utilised for subsurface CO₂ storage.

The results from this study demonstrate that mature oilfield communities can persist under CO₂ storage conditions (i.e. saturated CO₂ seawater and a CO₂ gas headspace), and that heterotrophic microbial processes, including sulfide production, were observed within a 12-month incubation period in the presence of readily utilisable hydrocarbons (i.e. VFAs).

The enrichment of heterotrophic taxa within the CO₂ enrichments demonstrates that hydrocarbon degradation, and sulfide production were able to occur under high concentrations of CO₂ and a reduced pH, and were supported by a reduction in available concentrations of VFAs (acetate, propionate and butyrate) throughout the 12-month incubation period.

Desulfallas-Sporotomaculum was the most abundant sulfate-reducing genus within the Test 6 (CO₂+VFA) enrichments after 12-months of incubation, and is a known anaerobic, spore-forming, sulfate-reducing genus which can be moderately thermophilic and is known to utilise short and long chain fatty acids (Watanabe, Kojima et al. 2018).  It can therefore be surmised that Desulfallas-Sporotomaculum species were able to utilise the available fatty acids within the enrichment medium as electron donors and facilitate dissimilatory sulfate-reducing processes. This is further supported by the low relative abundance of Desulfallas-Sporotomaculum within the Test 1 (CO₂) enrichments, where there was no additional readily metabolisable hydrocarbon added to the saline media prior to incubation.

By the end of the study, the Test 1 (CO₂) and Test 6 (CO₂+VFA) enrichments were dominated by hydrocarbon degrading genera, such as Parvibaculum, Marinobacter, Marinobacterium and Breoghania. All of these genera have previously been isolated from hydrocarbon associated marine environments, and are known to have the capacity to degrade hydrocarbon compounds (Gallego, Vila et al. 2010, Lai, Wang et al. 2011, Rosario-Passapera, Keddis et al. 2012, Bae, Jung et al. 2018, Scheffer, Hubert et al. 2021).

Genus-level microbial community composition of the CO2 saturated enrichments monthly (T0-T6) and then after 12-months of incubation (T7) using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.

Therefore, the results from this study demonstrate that microbial activity can persist under saturated CO₂ conditions, and that evidence of potentially problematic microbial activity (e.g. hydrogen sulfide production) can occur in hydrocarbon saturated environments that are utilised for CCS operations.

Ongoing research will encompass the use of groundwater and formation fluid samples from industrially relevant CO₂ storage sites of interest to profile the baseline microbial community and associated functional potential, and also identify the subsequent response to saturated CO₂ environments.

Read more on Sophie’s Flexible Funding 2023 project page.

Principal Investigator: Prof. Sophie Nixon (Chair of Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology)

Researcher Co-Investigator: Leanne Walker (Research Associate in Subsurface Microbiology (CCS))

Research Institution: The University of Manchester

Industrial Sponsor: ExxonMobil

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