Colloidal Particle Deposition in Porous Media Under Flow: A Numerical Approach

Abstract

The objective of this study is to simulate the transport and deposition of colloidal particles at the pore scale by means of computational fluid dynamics simulations (CFD). This consists in the three-dimensional numerical modeling of the process of transport and deposition of colloidal particles in a porous medium idealized as a bundle of capillaries of circular cross section. The velocity field obtained by solving the Stokes and continuity equations is superimposed to particles diffusion and particles are let to adsorb when they closely approach the solid wall. Once a particle is adsorbed the flow velocity field is updated before a new particle is injected. Our results show that both adsorption probability and surface coverage are decreasing functions of the particle’s Péclet number. At low Péclet number values when diffusion is dominant the surface coverage is shown to approach the Random Sequential Adsorption value while it drops noticeably for high Péclet number values. Obtained data were also used to calculate the loss of porosity and permeability.