scholarly journals Upscaling Mixing-Controlled Reactions in Unsaturated Porous Media

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lazaro J. Perez ◽  
Alexandre Puyguiraud ◽  
Juan J. Hidalgo ◽  
Joaquín Jiménez-Martínez ◽  
Rishi Parashar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Particle Tracking ◽  
Water Phase ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Unsaturated Porous Media ◽  
Reactive Mixing ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Random Walk Particle Tracking

AbstractWe study mixing-controlled chemical reactions in unsaturated porous media from a pore-scale perspective. The spatial heterogeneity induced by the presence of two immiscible phases, here water and air, in the pore space generates complex flow patterns that dominate reactive mixing across scales. To assess the impact of different macroscopic saturation states (the fraction of pore volume occupied by water) on mixing-controlled chemical reactions, we consider a fast irreversible reaction between two initially segregated dissolved species that mix as one solution displaces the other in the heterogeneous flow field of the water phase. We use the pore-scale geometry and water distributions from the laboratory experiments reported by Jiménez-Martínez et al. (Geophys. Res. Lett. 42: 5316–5324, 2015). We analyze reactive mixing in three complementary ways. Firstly, we post-process experimentally observed spatially distributed concentration data; secondly, we perform numerical simulations of flow and reactive transport in the heterogeneous water phase, and thirdly, we use an upscaled mixing model. The first approach relies on an exact algebraic map between conservative and reactive species for an instantaneous irreversible bimolecular reaction that allows to estimate reactive mixing based on experimental conservative transport data. The second approach is based on reactive random walk particle tracking simulations in the numerically determined flow field in the water phase. The third approach uses a dispersive lamella approach that accounts for the impact of flow heterogeneity on mixing in terms of effective dispersion coefficients, which are estimated from both experimental data and numerical random walk particle tracking simulations. We observe a significant increase in reactive mixing for decreasing saturation, which is caused by the stronger heterogeneity of the water phase and thus of the flow field. This is consistently observed in the experimental data and the direct numerical simulations. The dispersive lamella model, parameterized by the effective interface width, provides robust estimates of the evolution of the product mass obtained from the experimental and numerical data.

Diffusion limited mixing in heterogeneous porous media

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayumi Hamada ◽  
Pietro de Anna
Keyword(s):  
Porous Medium ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Flow Field ◽  
Fast Diffusion ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Mixing Processes ◽  
Local Flow ◽  
Gaussian Shape ◽  
Diffusion Limited ◽  
The Impact

<p><span><span>A pore-scale description of the transport and mixing processes is particularly relevant when looking at biological and chemical reactions. For instance, a microbial population growth is controlled by local concentrations of nutrients and oxygen, and chemical reaction are driven by molecular-scale concentration gradients. The heterogeneous flow field typically found in porous media results from the contrast of velocities that deforms and elongates the mixing fronts between solutes that often evolves through a lamella-like topology. For continuous Darcy type flow field a novel framework that describes the statistical distribution of concentration being transported was recently developed (Le Borgne et al., JFM 2015). In this model, concentrations in each lamella are distributed as a Gaussian-like profile which experiences diffusion in the transverse direction while the lamella is elongated by advection along the local flow direction. The evolving concentration field is described as the superposition of each lamella. We hypothesize that this novel view, while perfectly predicting the distribution of concentration for Darcy scale mixing processes, will breakdown when the processes description is at the pore scale. Indeed the presence of solid and impermeable boundaries prevents lamella concentration to diffuse freely according to the a Gaussian shape, and therefore changes the mixing front profile, the lamella superposition and elongation rules. P</span></span><span><span>revious work (Hamada et al, PRF, 2020) demonstrated that </span></span><span><span>the presence of solid boundaries leads to an enhanced diffusion and thus fast homogenization of concentrations. </span></span><span><span>In a purely diffusive process the local mixing time is reduced by a factor of ten with respect to the </span></span><span><span>continuous case and concentration gradient are dissipated exponentially fast while a </span></span><span><span>power law decrease </span></span><span><span>is </span></span><span><span>observed in continuous medium.</span></span><span><span> To investigate the impact of these mechanisms on mixing we developed a</span></span><span><span>n experimental set-up to visualize and quantify the displacement of a conservative tracer in a synthetic porous medium. The designed apparatus allows to obtain high resolution concentration measurement</span></span><span><span>s</span></span><span><span> at the pore scale. We show that the resulting mixing measures, computed in terms of concentration probability density function and dilution index values, diverge </span></span><span><span>qualitatively and quantitatively from what happens in a continuous domain. These observations suggest </span></span><span><span>that description of pore-scale diffusion-limited mixing requires model that takes into account the confined nature of porous medium, </span></span><span><span>otherwise we will tend to overestimate concentration value and neglect the fast diffusion dynamic taking place at microscopic level.</span></span></p>

Pore-scale study of effects of surface roughness on the transport of interfacial reactive tracers during primary drainage process

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huhao Gao ◽  
Alexandru Tatomir ◽  
Nikolaos Karadimitriou ◽  
Holger Steeb ◽  
Martin Sauter
Keyword(s):  
Surface Roughness ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Reactive Transport ◽  
Capillary Condensation ◽  
Field Method ◽  
Phase Field Method ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Water Films ◽  
Mobile Mass ◽  
The Impact

<p>Porous media surface roughness strongly influences the transport of solutes during drainage, due to the formation of thick water films (capillary condensation) on the porous media surface. In the case of interfacial-reacted, water-based solutes, these water films increase both the production of the solute, due to the increased number of fluid-fluid interfaces, and the loss of the solute by the retention in the stagnant water films. The retention of the solute in flowing water is described by a mobile mass retention term. This study applies the pore-scale direct simulation with the phase-field method based continuous solute transport (PFM-CST) model on the kinetic interfacial sensitive (KIS) tracer reactive transport during primary drainage in a 2D slit with a wall with variable fractal geometries. The capillary-associated moving interface is found to be larger for rough surfaces than smoother ones. The results confirm that the impact of roughness regarding the film-associated interfacial area can be partly, or totally masked, in a drained slit. It is found that the mobile mass retention term is increased with larger volumes of capillary condensed water films. To conclude, it is also found that the surface roughness factor has a non-monotonic relationship with the overall production rate of solute mass in moving water.</p>

A NEW RELATIVE PERMEABILITY MODEL OF UNSATURATED POROUS MEDIA BASED ON FRACTAL THEORY

Fractals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (01) ◽  
pp. 2050002
Author(s):  
KE CHEN ◽  
HE CHEN ◽  
PENG XU
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Fractal Dimension ◽  
Multiphase Flow ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Volume Fraction ◽  
Fractal Model ◽  
Accurate Estimation ◽  
Unsaturated Porous Media ◽  
Flow Through

The multiphase flow through unsaturated porous media and accurate estimation of relative permeability are significant for oil and gas reservoir, grounder water resource and chemical engineering, etc. A new fractal model is developed for the multiphase flow through unsaturated porous media, where multiscale pore structure is characterized by fractal scaling law and the trapped water in the pores is taken into account. And the analytical expression for relative permeability is derived accordingly. The relationships between the relative permeability and capillary head as well as saturation are determined. The proposed model is validated by comparison with 14 sets of experimental data, which indicates that the fractal model agrees well with experimental data. It has been found that the proposed fractal model shows evident advantages compared with BC-B model and VG-M model, especially for the porous media with fine content and texture. Further calculations show that water permeability decreases as the fractal dimension increases under fixed saturation because the cumulative volume fraction of small pores increases with the increment of the fractal dimension. The present fractal model for the relative permeability may be helpful to understand the multiphase flow through unsaturated porous media.

scholarly journals Wettability control on multiphase flow in patterned microfluidics

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (37) ◽  
pp. 10251-10256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benzhong Zhao ◽  
Christopher W. MacMinn ◽  
Ruben Juanes
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Multiphase Flow ◽  
Contact Angles ◽  
Flow In Porous Media ◽  
Wetting Transition ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Displacement Efficiency ◽  
Pore Filling ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact

Multiphase flow in porous media is important in many natural and industrial processes, including geologic CO2 sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, and water infiltration into soil. Although it is well known that the wetting properties of porous media can vary drastically depending on the type of media and pore fluids, the effect of wettability on multiphase flow continues to challenge our microscopic and macroscopic descriptions. Here, we study the impact of wettability on viscously unfavorable fluid–fluid displacement in disordered media by means of high-resolution imaging in microfluidic flow cells patterned with vertical posts. By systematically varying the wettability of the flow cell over a wide range of contact angles, we find that increasing the substrate’s affinity to the invading fluid results in more efficient displacement of the defending fluid up to a critical wetting transition, beyond which the trend is reversed. We identify the pore-scale mechanisms—cooperative pore filling (increasing displacement efficiency) and corner flow (decreasing displacement efficiency)—responsible for this macroscale behavior, and show that they rely on the inherent 3D nature of interfacial flows, even in quasi-2D media. Our results demonstrate the powerful control of wettability on multiphase flow in porous media, and show that the markedly different invasion protocols that emerge—from pore filling to postbridging—are determined by physical mechanisms that are missing from current pore-scale and continuum-scale descriptions.

Impact of chaotic mixing on reactive transport: experiment in porous media at high Pe and Da

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Sanquer ◽  
Joris Heyman ◽  
Tanguy Le Borgne ◽  
Khalil Hanna
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Reactive Transport ◽  
3D Imaging ◽  
Fluid Phase ◽  
Reaction Rates ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Chaotic Mixing ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Chemical Gradients ◽  
The Impact

<p>Solute transport in porous media plays a key role in a range of chemical and biological processes, including contaminant degradation, precipitation, dissolution and microbiological dynamics. Increasing evidences have shown that the conventional complete mixing assumption at the pore scale can lead to a strong overestimation of reaction rates. Recent 3D imaging experiments of mixing in porous media suggest that these pore scale chemical gradients may be sustained by chaotic mixing dynamics. However, the consequences of such chaotic mixing on reactive processes are unknown.</p><p>In this work, we use reactive transport experiments coupled to 3D imaging to investigate the impact of micro-scale chaotic flows on mixing-limited reactions in the fluid phase.  We use optical index matching and laser-induced fluorescence to characterize the pore scale distribution of reactive product concentration for a range of Peclet and Damkhöler numbers. We use these measurements to develop a reactive lamellar theory that quantifies the impact of pore scale chemical gradients induced by chaotic mixing on effective reaction rates. These results provide new perspectives for upscaling reactive transport processes in porous media.</p>

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