Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pham, Ngoc H.
• Papavassiliou, Dimitrios V.

Titel

Nanoparticle transport in heterogeneous porous media with particle tracking numerical methods

Ist Teil von

• Computational particle mechanics, 2017, Vol.4 (1), p.87-100

Ort / Verlag

Cham: Springer International Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In this article, transport and retention of nanoparticles that flow in suspension through packed beds with unconsolidated spheres and through consolidated Berea sandstone are numerically explored. The surfaces exhibit electrical charge heterogeneity where particles can deposit blocking the surrounding surface deposition sites. The lattice Boltzmann method with Lagrangian particle tracking are the techniques employed. Four ideal patterns of surface charge heterogeneity are adopted for the packed sphere beds, while a real distribution of charge heterogeneity is determined for the Berea core through micro-CT image segmentation. It is found that particle breakthrough curves do not reach a plateau, unless the pore surfaces are completely saturated. Surface saturation also enhances particle propagation because of the surface blocking mechanism, reducing the effective particle deposition rate. In addition, surface saturation mitigates the effect of the pattern of heterogeneity on particle retention, which might be pronounced when blocking is not taken into account. It is also observed from the case of Berea core that the heterogeneity of the mineralogical surfaces disturbs particle transport depending on the physicochemical properties of the surfaces. Likewise, similarity of the mineralogical surface properties is a prerequisite for the commonly used patch-wise model with Langmuirian blocking to reproduce nanoparticle breakthrough in such porous media.