Solubility of CO2 in the ocean and its effect on CO2 dissolution

Abstract The rate of mass transfer from pure CO 2 effluent discharged in the deep ocean depends strongly on the solubility of CO 2 in seawater. This thermodynamic study derives solubility relationships for both gas- and liquid-phase CO 2 in seawater. It is determined that, for CO 2 gas, solubility depends on both temperature and pressure and, as a consequence, solubility increases sharply with depth in the ocean. For CO 2 liquid, solubility depends only on temperature and increases slowly with depth, approaching near constant values in the deep ocean. These results are applied to examine dissolution rates of CO 2 bubbles and droplets.