Influence of mineralization and injection flow rate on flow patterns in three-dimensional porous media

Abstract

Reactive flows inside porous media play an important role in a number of geophysical and industrial processes. Here we present three-dimensional experimental measurements on how precipitation and flow patterns change with the flow rate inside a model porous medium consisting of monodisperse glass beads. The sample is initially filled with an aqueous solution of sodium carbonate into which a solution of barium chloride is injected at a constant flow rate. Upon contact and reaction, the two reactants produce water-insoluble barium carbonate which precipitates onto the glass beads. This precipitate then modifies the flow morphology which in turn changes the spatial distribution of the precipitate. We discuss the influence of the flow rate on the morphology of the flow pattern and demonstrate that neither viscous fingering nor the Rayleigh-Taylor instability have any significant influence in our model system.

Effect of precipitation mineralization reactions on convective dissolution ofCO2: An experimental study

“…More experimental and theoretical works will be needed to unravel all the rich dynamics possibilities of this chemo-hydrodynamic system [51]. In particular, conducting similar analysis of reactive transport in real three-dimensional (3D) porous media would be of special interest [18].…”

“…This mineralization process is expected to increase storage capacity and reduce the risk of leakage, and is therefore particularly interesting for an efficient long-term storage of CO 2 [1,13,14]. However, these dissolution-precipitation reactions might irreversibly modify the physical characteristics of the reservoir, such as its porosity or permeability [16][17][18], which could have a dramatical impact on the safety of the storage process. Hence, much research has been devoted to the analysis of the impact of precipitation and/or dissolution processes upon CO 2 injection in reactive porous media on the local permeability and porosity of the reservoir [18][19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Outcrop scale mixing enhanced by permeability variations: the role of stationary and travelling waves of high saturation indices

“…There has been significant development in numerical models of ore deposits in the last 30 years, mainly focusing on large-scale simulations coupling geological geometries with fluid flow, heat transfer, species transport and reactions as well as deformation (e.g. review in Gessner et al 2009Gessner et al , 2018Hobbs & Ord, 2018;Moosavi et al 2019). In this contribution we aim to study the details of the outlined processes on the metre scale to understand the local influence of geological structures on fluid mixing.…”

Enhancing the yield of calcium carbonate precipitation by obstacles in laminar flow in a confined geometry

“…To achieve reliable image quality, Ba(II) solution is frequently used as a contrast agent instead of Ca(II). 8 However, the pattern formation of BaCO 3 and CaCO 3 can lead to a significantly different spatial distribution of the precipitate. 9 Another disadvantage of the tomographic methods is their low time resolution which does not enable real time tracking of dynamic processes.…”