Bacteria and microorganisms retention during water filtration allows to improve water quality and quantity. For that reason, the mechanisms affecting the propagation and fate of microbial populations need to be study to assess the risks for human health of water renovation technologies as managed artificial recharge.
In this work we study bacteria transport in porous media by means of column...
CO2 injection into geological formations is considered as technologically advanced and economically feasible approach that combines both CO2 sequestration and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The absorption- and diffusion processes at the CO2-oil interface (under reservoir conditions) plays an integral role in governing key physico-chemical properties such as volume increase, miscibility, density...
The microstructure of snow determines its fundamental properties such as the mechanical strength, reflectivity, or the thermo-hydraulic properties. Snow undergoes continuous microstructural changes due to local gradients in temperature, humidity or curvature, in a process known as snow metamorphism. Dry snow metamorphism occurs at temperature below the melting point where the snow is assumed...
Understanding, quantifying, and predicting biogeochemical reaction rates is a fundamental scientific challenge with broad implications for the characterization and management of the critical zone and beyond. Unlike under the special conditions found in laboratory batch tests, mass transfer limitations are ubiquitous in natural systems, and the resulting incomplete mixing that can dramatically...
Understanding reactive microscale flows in porous media is essential for managing the geochemical processes involved in subsurface $CO_2$ storage. These processes, including precipitation, crystallization, and dissolution, contribute to the mineral trapping of injected CO2 and govern the evolution of fluid-mineral interfaces. Bridging these pore-scale phenomena with their large-scale...
Nanotechnology has been rapidly growing in various industrial sectors, particularly in subsurface applications such as soil and aquifer remediation, greenhouse carbon storage, and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). An application of nanoparticles with great potential is the stabilization of emulsions and foams, which are used as mobility-control agents to optimize gas flooding. However, retention...
Foam flow in porous media is important in various engineering applications, including soil remediation, carbon dioxide sequestration, and enhanced oil recovery. This study explores the relationship between bubble density and permeability in foam flow models, focusing on how different approaches capture foam formation in highly permeable regions. We compare two mechanistic models numerically....
Hydrogen storage in saline aquifers offers a promising large-scale, long-term strategy for renewable energy storage. Compared to conventional CO2 geological storage, hydrogen injection introduces unique challenges due to its ultra-low viscosity and density, high rock reactivity, and microbial driven consumption [1]. In this work, we set aside bio-geo-chemical reactions to focus on the...
Dissolution and precipitation processes taking place at the interface between water and the solid matrix of the host porous medium are key drivers for chemical weathering of minerals in subsurface environments. Direct high-resolution imaging of mineral substrates subject to dissolution/ precipitation document that these reactions are driven by local mechanistic phenomena originating at natural...
Rayleigh-Darcy (R-D) convection emerges when fluid density at the top is higher than that at the bottom in a porous stratum. This density mismatch may be induced by geothermal gradient or concentration contrast during CO2 or mineral dissolution. R-D convection largely determines the vertical heat and mass transfer, and may significantly reshape the porous matrix.
Here we introduce our...
In drinking water purification operations, liquid-solid fluidised (LSF) bed reactors are often used, for example in seeded crystallization softening processes (1). Fluidised beds can be considered as dynamic porous media with fascinating spatio-temporal behaviours (1). Usually, LSF systems are considered to be homogeneous under moderate superficial fluid velocities. However, recent...
Multiphase flow in porous media on large (Darcy) scales is conventionally modelled by constitutive relations: relative permeability and capillary pressure functions. These are typically obtained experimentally and are specific for a given porous medium and flowing phases under certain conditions. The approach, although widely used, is still under scrutiny. One of the fundamental challenges of...
Recently, reflection interference fringe (RIF) and transmission fringe techniques (TIF) have been introduced to investigate the origin of far-field interference fringe formation and to determine a droplet’s contact angle and thickness. In this study, an integrated analysis of the interference fringe (IF) technique is conducted by varying the schematics, including configuration...
Phase nucleation on substrates with different geometries arises in many important industrial processes such as condensation, crystal growth, and desalination [1]. The nucleation behavior on planar or spherical surfaces has been accurately elucidated [2-3]. However, on the surfaces with complex geometries, the dependence of the energy barrier for forming a critical nucleus on the geometry and...
