Tuesday, 26 June 2007 - 10:20 AM
Pencader 103
215

Colloid-colloid Interactions Influence Deposition in Porous Media

Huilian Ma and William P. Johnson. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT

Colloid-colloid interactions are often neglected in the past studies of particle deposition in porous media. Apart from the complexity involved in accounting for such interactions, this neglect may largely result from limitations of traditional colloid transport theories, which predict no attachment under unfavorable situations (i.e., in the presence of an energy barrier to deposition due to same-charged surfaces). Recent advances in understanding the mechanisms of colloidal retention in the presence of energy barrier provide a basis for inclusion of colloid-colloid interactions in predictions of particle deposition. Here, simulations incorporating colloidal interactions into a Langragian particle trajectory model are presented. Results show that despite their mutual electrostatic repulsion, colloid-colloid interactions can mitigate or enhance retention in porous media depending on the fluid velocity and chemical conditions. The simulations reproduce blocking and ripening phenomena observed in experiments performed in the presence of an energy barrier to deposition.