Modeling Nondilute Species Transport Using the Thermodynamically Constrained Averaging Theory

Abstract

AbstractNondilute transport in porous media results in fronts that are much sharper in space and time than the corresponding transport of a conservative, nonreactive dilute species. A thermodynamically constrained averaging theory model for such situations is developed. A novel closure scheme is formulated, which is cross‐coupled between flow and transport in its most general form. Experiments are performed to investigate the effects of density, viscosity, and chemical activity. An adaptive numerical approximation method is developed to efficiently solve the formulated model. Parameter estimation is performed, and excellent agreement between laboratory data and model simulations is obtained. Accurate prediction of experimental data not used to estimate model parameters is found. It is also shown that chemical activity effects contribute to asymmetric breakthrough curves for nondilute transport in porous medium systems.