Helmut Geistlinger

Quantification of capillary trapping of gas clusters using X-ray microtomography

A major difficulty in modeling multiphase flow in porous media is the emergence of trapped phases. Our experiments demonstrate that gas can be trapped in either single-pores, multipores, or in large connected networks. These large connected clusters can comprise up to eight grain volumes and can contain up to 50% of the whole trapped gas volume. About 85% of the gas volume is trapped by multipore gas clusters. This variety of possible trapped gas clusters of different shape and volume will lead to a better process understanding of bubble-mediated mass transfer. Since multipore gas bubbles are in contact with the solid surface through ultrathin adsorbed water films the interfacial area between trapped gas clusters and intergranular capillary water is only about 80% of the total gas surface. We could derive a significant (R2 = 0.98) linear relationship between the gas-water-interface and gas saturation. We found no systematic dependency of the front velocity of the invading water phase in the velocity range from 0.1 to 0.6 cm/min corresponding to capillary numbers from 2 × 10−7 to 10−6. Our experimental results indicate that the capillary trapping mechanism is controlled by the local pore structure and local connectivity and not by thermodynamics, i.e., by the minimum of the Free Energy, at least in the considered velocity range. Consistent with this physical picture is our finding that the trapping frequency (= bubble-size distribution) reflects the pore size distribution for the whole range of pore radii, i.e., the capillary trapping process is determined by statistics and not by thermodynamics.

Membrane Based Measurement Technology for in situ Monitoring of Gases in Soil

The representative measurement of gas concentration and fluxes in heterogeneous soils is one of the current challenges when analyzing the interactions of biogeochemical processes in soils and global change. Furthermore, recent research projects on CO2-sequestration have an urgent need of CO2-monitoring networks. Therefore, a measurement method based on selective permeation of gases through tubular membranes has been developed. Combining the specific permeation rates of gas components for a membrane and Daltons principle, the gas concentration (or partial pressure) can be determined by the measurement of physical quantities (pressure or volume) only. Due to the comparatively small permeation constants of membranes, the influence of the sensor on its surrounding area can be neglected. The design of the sensor membranes can be adapted to the spatial scale from the bench scale to the field scale. The sensitive area for the measurement can be optimized to obtain representative results. Furthermore, a continuous time-averaged measurement is possible where the time for averaging is simply controlled by the wall-thickness of the membrane used. The measuring method is demonstrated for continuous monitoring of O2 and CO2 inside of a sand filled Lysimeter. Using three sensor planes inside the sand pack, which were installed normal to the gas flow direction and a reference measurement system, we demonstrate the accuracy of the gas-detection for different flux-based boundary conditions.

Impact of Surface Roughness on Capillary Trapping Using 2D-Micromodel Visualization Experiments

According to experimental observations, capillary trapping is strongly dependent on the roughness of the pore–solid interface. We performed imbibition experiments in the range of capillary numbers (Ca) from

Influence of the heterogeneous wettability on capillary trapping in glass-beads monolayers: Comparison between experiments and the invasion percolation theory

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Direct gas injection into saturated glass beads: Transition from incoherent to coherent gas flow pattern

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Mass transfer between a multicomponent trapped gas phase and a mobile water phase: Experiment and theory

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