scholarly journals Stretching and folding sustain microscale chemical gradients in porous media

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (24) ◽  
pp. 13359-13365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joris Heyman ◽  
Daniel R. Lester ◽  
Régis Turuban ◽  
Yves Méheust ◽  
Tanguy Le Borgne
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Reactive Transport ◽  
Granular Matter ◽  
Kinematic Model ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Flow In Porous Media ◽  
Chaotic Mixing ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Chemical Gradients

Fluid flow in porous media drives the transport, mixing, and reaction of molecules, particles, and microorganisms across a wide spectrum of natural and industrial processes. Current macroscopic models that average pore-scale fluctuations into an effective dispersion coefficient have shown significant limitations in the prediction of many important chemical and biological processes. Yet, it is unclear how three-dimensional flow in porous structures govern the microscale chemical gradients controlling these processes. Here, we obtain high-resolution experimental images of microscale mixing patterns in three-dimensional porous media and uncover an unexpected and general mixing mechanism that strongly enhances concentration gradients at pore-scale. Our experiments reveal that systematic stretching and folding of fluid elements are produced in the pore space by grain contacts, through a mechanism that leads to efficient microscale chaotic mixing. These insights form the basis for a general kinematic model linking chaotic-mixing rates in the fluid phase to the generic structural properties of granular matter. The model successfully predicts the resulting enhancement of pore-scale chemical gradients, which appear to be orders of magnitude larger than predicted by dispersive approaches. These findings offer perspectives for predicting and controlling the vast diversity of reactive transport processes in natural and synthetic porous materials, beyond the current dispersion paradigm.

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>

A Pore-Scale Reactive Transport Model Approach for Investigating the Effect of Soil Physical Properties on Biogeochemical Processes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Golparvar ◽  
Matthias Kästner ◽  
Martin Thullner
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Physical Properties ◽  
Vadose Zone ◽  
Reactive Transport ◽  
Soil Physical Properties ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Biogeochemical Processes ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Model Approach

<p>The vadose zone hosts a wide range of various microorganisms which provide different soil ecosystem services from nutrient cycling to biodegradation of harmful chemical substances. The efficiency of such in-situ biodegradation is influenced by different biotic and abiotic factors ranging from physical properties of the soil to the redox conditions controlled by the activity of the involved chemical compounds. One important feature of the soil system is the dynamical and simultaneous interplay of these factors, boosting or deteriorating the residing microbial community’s abundance and/or activity and hence shaping biodegradation of vadose zone contaminants. Physical properties of porous media – e.g. the pore geometry, pore size distribution, connectivity as well as the water content – play a major role in enhancing or restricting the bioavailable concentration of contaminants and other reaction partners. Pore-scale phenomena have been shown to be considerably affecting the macro-scale processes, therefore a quantitative bottom-top approach of these mechanisms in situ is adamant. Hence it is of paramount importance to understand the effect of soil physical properties on microbial activity and biodegradation of carbon compounds in soil.</p><p>Pore scale reactive transport processes have a complex, nonlinear dependency on the aforementioned factors, which severely challenges the experimental and/or numerical investigation of biodegradation at in in-situ conditions. However, the recent technological advances, specifically the imaging techniques, have made it easier to study biological and microbial evolution in porous media, but there is still a need for putting all these information together. For this purpose, numerical methods would offer the possibility of simulating a variable/controllable water saturation conditions and considering water/air dynamics and advective and diffusive micro-scale transport of all components in both, air and water phase, in porous medium structures directly obtained from CT scanned samples. Up to now, such pore-sale model approaches considering also the fate of biogeochemically reactive compounds are scarce. In this work we propose a novel reactive transport modelling technique combining the pore-scale numerical characterization of water flow and solute transport in unsaturated porous media and of biogeochemical process. For a variably saturated porous system, the presented model approach is solving the Navier Stokes equation and scalar transport equations for any arbitrary geometry and is simulating the dynamics of biogeochemical processes with any degree of complexity. Simulations are compared to experimental data to assess the effect of soil physical properties on the transport and degradation of contaminants in soil.</p>

scholarly journals Direct Numerical Simulation of Pore-Scale Trapping Events During Capillary-Dominated Two-Phase Flow in Porous Media

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mosayeb Shams ◽  
Kamaljit Singh ◽  
Branko Bijeljic ◽  
Martin J. Blunt
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulation ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Direct Numerical Simulation ◽  
Complex Geometry ◽  
Flow In Porous Media ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Contact Lines ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Aspect Ratios

AbstractThis study focuses on direct numerical simulation of imbibition, displacement of the non-wetting phase by the wetting phase, through water-wet carbonate rocks. We simulate multiphase flow in a limestone and compare our results with high-resolution synchrotron X-ray images of displacement previously published in the literature by Singh et al. (Sci Rep 7:5192, 2017). We use the results to interpret the observed displacement events that cannot be described using conventional metrics such as pore-to-throat aspect ratio. We show that the complex geometry of porous media can dictate a curvature balance that prevents snap-off from happening in spite of favourable large aspect ratios. We also show that pinned fluid-fluid-solid contact lines can lead to snap-off of small ganglia on pore walls; we propose that this pinning is caused by sub-resolution roughness on scales of less than a micron. Our numerical results show that even in water-wet porous media, we need to allow pinned contacts in place to reproduce experimental results.

Porous media as a canvas for hydro-bio-geo-chemical processes: Facing the challenges

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Sanchez-Vila
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Reactive Transport ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Aquifer Recharge ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Emerging Compounds ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Large Research

<p>The more we study flow and transport processes in porous media, the larger the number of questions that arise. Heterogeneity, uncertainty, multidisciplinarity, and interdisciplinarity are key words that make our live as researchers miserable… and interesting. There are many ways of facing complexity; this is equivalent as deciding what colors and textures to consider when being placed in front of a fresh canvas, or what are the sounds to include and combine in a music production. You can try to get as much as you can from one discipline, using very sophisticated state-of-the-art models. On the other hand, you can choose to bring to any given problem a number of disciplines, maybe having to sacrifice deepness in exchange of the better good of yet still sophisticated multifaceted solutions. There are quite a number of examples of the latter approach. In this talk, I will present a few of those, eventually concentrating in managed aquifer recharge (MAR) practices. This technology involves water resources from a myriad of perspectives, covering from climate change to legislation, from social awareness to reactive transport, from toxicological issues to biofilm formation, from circular economy to emerging compounds, from research to pure technological developments, and more. All of these elements deserve our attention as researchers, and we cannot pretend to master all of them. Integration, development of large research groups, open science are words that will appear in this talk. So does mathematics, and physics, and geochemistry, and organic chemistry, and biology. In any given hydrogeological problem you might need to combine equations, statistics, experiments, field work, and modeling; expect all of them in this talk. As groundwater complexity keeps amazing and mesmerizing me, do not expect solutions being provided, just anticipate more and more challenging research questions being asked.</p>

Chemotaxis under flow disorder shapes microbial dispersion in porous media 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pietro de Anna ◽  
Amir A. Pahlavan ◽  
Yutaka Yawata ◽  
Roman Stocker ◽  
Ruben Juanes
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Dispersion Coefficient ◽  
Pore Space ◽  
Low Flow ◽  
Pore Scale ◽  
Porous Rocks ◽  
Chemical Gradients ◽  
Deep Earth ◽  
Bacterium Bacillus Subtilis ◽  
Bacterium Bacillus

<div> <div> <div> <p>Natural soils are host to a high density and diversity of microorganisms, and even deep-earth porous rocks provide a habitat for active microbial communities. In these environ- ments, microbial transport by disordered flows is relevant for a broad range of natural and engineered processes, from biochemical cycling to remineralization and bioremediation. Yet, how bacteria are transported and distributed in the sub- surface as a result of the disordered flow and the associ- ated chemical gradients characteristic of porous media has remained poorly understood, in part because studies have so far focused on steady, macroscale chemical gradients. Here, we use a microfluidic model system that captures flow disorder and chemical gradients at the pore scale to quantify the transport and dispersion of the soil-dwelling bacterium Bacillus subtilis in porous media. We observe that chemotaxis strongly modulates the persistence of bacteria in low-flow regions of the pore space, resulting in a 100% increase in their dispersion coefficient. This effect stems directly from the strong pore-scale gradients created by flow disorder and demonstrates that the microscale interplay between bacterial behaviour and pore-scale disorder can impact the macroscale dynamics of biota in the subsurface.</p> </div> </div> </div>

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>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document