Pore-scale study of effects of surface roughness on the transport of interfacial reactive tracers during primary drainage process

Porous media surface roughness strongly influences the transport of solutes during drainage, due to the formation of thick water films (capillary condensation) on the porous media surface. In the case of interfacial-reacted, water-based solutes, these water films increase both the production of the solute, due to the increased number of fluid-fluid interfaces, and the loss of the solute by the retention in the stagnant water films. The retention of the solute in flowing water is described by a mobile mass retention term. This study applies the pore-scale direct simulation with the phase-field method based continuous solute transport (PFM-CST) model on the kinetic interfacial sensitive (KIS) tracer reactive transport during primary drainage in a 2D slit with a wall with variable fractal geometries. The capillary-associated moving interface is found to be larger for rough surfaces than smoother ones. The results confirm that the impact of roughness regarding the film-associated interfacial area can be partly, or totally masked, in a drained slit. It is found that the mobile mass retention term is increased with larger volumes of capillary condensed water films. To conclude, it is also found that the surface roughness factor has a non-monotonic relationship with the overall production rate of solute mass in moving water.