Influence of the heterogeneous wettability on capillary trapping in glass-beads monolayers: Comparison between experiments and the invasion percolation theory

Abstract

We demonstrated that a change in the surface chemistry, i.e., a change from heterogeneous to homogeneous wettability, can dramatically influence capillary trapping, i.e., from significant trapping (∼5%) to no trapping. Furthermore, the displacement process (water displaces air) in glass-beads monolayer with heterogeneous wettability shows (i) a heterogeneous morphology and a stochastic advancement of the interface in the highly ordered triangular structure, (ii) capillary trapping of a broad variety of gas clusters, notably large ganglia-like and network-like gas clusters, and (iii) a variation in the contact angle between 30° and 100°.In the second part of this paper, we compared the experimental results of capillary trapping for the monolayer that possesses a heterogeneous wettability with predictions from the invasion percolation theory and found excellent agreement, e.g., that the experimental cluster size distribution can be described by a universal power-law with an averaged exponent τexp=2.06; that is a deviation of 5% from the theoretical value. This agreement indicates that capillary trapping within the 2D-monolayer is governed by the 3D critical exponent; therefore, the monolayer shows a trapping behavior similar to a 3D-porous media.We proposed an analytical approach to calculate the mass transfer rate constant using functional relationships predicted by percolation theory and compare this result with results derived from empirical relationships, which are often used for modelling the dissolution process of trapped non-wetting phases.