Large-deposit non-linear chemical reactive flows in porous media: Identifiability and observability

Abstract

This work discusses the use of additional pressure drop measurements in the characterisation of chemical reactive flow in porous media resulting in insoluble solid deposition. Previous studies of this problem have used outlet breakthrough concentration of one species and pressure drop across the sample during the commingled injection of reacting species, to determine model coefficients. In this work, we consider the introduction of additional measurements of pressure drop across subsections of the sample. The recently derived analytical model is compared to laboratory data to demonstrate the validity of both the model and additional measurement data. The effect of measuring different quantities is assessed by considering the identifiability of the model parameters. All parameters exhibit finite confidence intervals, however, datasets neglecting breakthrough concentration result in higher parameter uncertainty. Higher parameter uncertainty is shown to result in uncertainty in deposit profiles and prediction of pressure drop at higher length scales, demonstrating the importance of limiting parameter uncertainty through experimental design.