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Pore‐space alteration induced by brine acidification in subsurface geologic formations
Author(s) -
Ovaysi Saeed,
Piri Mohammad
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1002/2013wr014289
Subject(s) - characterisation of pore space in soil , porous medium , dissolution , porosity , permeability (electromagnetism) , geology , mineralogy , materials science , mechanics , chemical engineering , geotechnical engineering , chemistry , physics , biochemistry , membrane , engineering
A new Lagrangian particle‐based method is presented to simulate reactive transport in natural porous media. This technique is based on Modified Moving Particle Semi‐implicit (MMPS) and takes as input high‐resolution voxel images of natural porous media. The flow field in the medium is computed by solving the incompressible Navier‐Stokes equations. Moreover, a multicomponent ion transport model is coupled with a homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions module to handle pore‐space alteration (i.e., pore‐wall dissolution). The model is first successfully validated against the experimental data available in the literature. Subsequently, X‐ray microtomographic images of two naturally occurring porous media are used to investigate the impact of reaction kinetics and pore‐space topology on pore‐space alteration induced by brine acidification in subsurface conditions. We observed that at the normal rates of reactions no significant change in porosity and permeability takes place in the short term. Whereas, higher reaction rates caused major changes in the macroscopic properties (e.g., porosity and permeability) of the rocks. We also show that these changes are strongly affected by the rocks' pore‐scale topologies.