Experimental study of water adsorption on Geysers reservoir rocks

Experimental isotherms of water vapor adsorption/desorption on three geothermal reservoir rock samples have been measured at temperatures of 80, 100, 120 and 140°C. Initial surface status of the sample was found to influence the amount of water adsorbed. At low relative pressures, adsorption is the dominant process of water retention onto the rock samples. Adsorption/desorption hysteresis was observed to exist over the whole pressure range at all temperatures. Similar observations were made for all three samples. The results of this study suggest that adsorption is important in storing water in geothermal reservoir rocks not only in itself, but also in inducing capillary condensation