Speaker
Description
Solute transport in porous media is important for several industrial applications, i.e.: hydrology, building stone performance and waste management. Spreading and mixing during solute transport is significantly impacted by the pore scale heterogeneity found in natural porous media, which complicates upscaling (Dentz et al., 2011). Therefore, simulations and experiments which investigate the evolution of pore scale solute concentration fields in such materials are very valuable. However, direct visualisation of these concentration fields at the micron-scale in rocks is complicated by the high spatial and time resolutions that are required. Bultreys et al. (2016) and Boone et al. (2016) present first tests on imaging solute transport in a carbonate rock using fast laboratory-based micro-CT. In this study, we extend this work by attempting to quantify micro-CT concentration fields, in order to investigate spreading and mixing under different flow conditions in porous materials with different degrees of heterogeneity.
A significant part of this work is aimed at the methodological challenge of performing in-situ micro-CT scans of solute transport with imaging times on the order of seconds. We use the EMCT scanner of UGCT (www.ugct.ugent.be), a micro-CT system specially designed for in-situ imaging, with a rotating X-ray tube and detector in a horizontal plane (Dierick et al., 2014) and investigate the quantitative correctness when imaging the concentration of a dissolved tracer salt (0 wt%, 2 wt%, 4 wt%, 6 wt%, 8 wt% and 10 wt% CsCl) in porous sintered glass at 12 seconds per scan, with a voxel size of 13 micron. The CsCl-concentration increases the X-ray attenuation coefficient of the fluid, which causes an increase in grey values observed in the reconstructed micro-CT datasets. The high temporal resolution at which the micro-CT images are taken, is inherently linked with a limited signal-to-noise ratio. Despite this drawback, the first experimental results suggest a linear relationship between the grey values of the tracer-solution in the fast scans and the tracer concentration.
Results from the presented experiments can be used to investigate flow structures at the pore scale and to validate pore scale solute transport simulations. Further development of the methodology could also lead to valuable insights in multi-phase solute transport and reactive transport.
References
Bultreys, T., 2016. Two-phase flow in rocks: new insights from multi-scale pore network modelling and fast pore scale visualization. Proefschrift ter behaling van de graad van doctor in de wetenschappen: fysica en in de wetenschappen: geologie.
Boone, M., Bultreys, T., Masschaele, B., Van Loo, D., Van Hoorebeke, L. & Cnudde, V., 2016. In-situ real time micro-CT imaging of pore scale processes, the next frontier for laboratory based micro-CT scanning. Paper was prepared for presentation at the International Symposium of the Society of Core Analysts held in Snowmass, Colorado, USA, 21-29 August 2016.
Dentz, M., Le Borgne, T., Englert, A. & Bijeljic, B., 2011. Mixing, spreading and reaction in heterogeneous media: A brief review. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 120-121. 1-17.
Dierick, M., Van Loo, D., Masschaele, B., Van den Bulcke, J., Van Acker, J., Cnudde, V. & Van Hoorebeke, L., 2014. Recent micro-CT scanner developments at UGCT. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B, 324, 35-40.
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