High-temperature measurements of water adsorption in geothermal rocks

Water adsorption phenomena are a rich and new _eld of study in geothermal researchparticularly at very high temperatures[ ENEL is interested in the exploitation of geothermal regions with superheated steam\ so it is important to understand the behaviour of water!rock interaction[ We have analysed four samples of Monteverdi cuttings "southwest of Larderello _eld\ Tuscany# in the 069 199>C temperature range and the results are presented in this paper[ The presence of adsorbed water is very important\ and it is able to multiply the estimated reserves of superheated steam by a factor of 03 in the Monteverdi geothermal _eld[ There is only a slight in~uence of the reservoir temperature on the amount of adsorbed water[ 0888 CNR[ Published by Elsevier Science Ltd[ All rights reserved