Textural control on the quadrature conductivity of porous media

Abstract

Induced polarization (IP) has been broadly used for environmental and hydrogeological applications and in civil engineering. The IP response of a porous medium without metallic particles (described by its quadrature conductivity or its normalized chargeability) is controlled by the interfacial electrochemistry of the electrical double layer and the pore-space geometry. We use the specific surface per unit pore volume normalized by the formation factor (i.e., [Formula: see text]) as the controlling textural parameter for the quadrature conductivity. This relationship is obtained by averaging the surface conductance over the pore volume. A database that contains 76 samples (including porous borosilicate glass, sandstones, and clayey sediments) is used to check the new scaling. In addition to these data, we have conducted new IP measurements on 13 samples from the Middle Bakken Formation corresponding to low-porosity clayey materials. Comparison between the experimental data and our model confirms that the ratio [Formula: see text] is the dominant textural parameter describing the quadrature conductivity [Formula: see text] of a broad range of porous media. The database was also used to test whether the quadrature conductivity depended either on [Formula: see text], or the specific surface area [Formula: see text], or the ratio [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text] being the connected porosity). Although the quadrature conductivity scales with [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] for high-porosity sandstones, these relationships are not appropriate for the low-porosity clayey materials presented in this study. However, experimental data support the dependence of the quadrature conductivity on [Formula: see text], a published relationship obtained through the volume averaging approach.