ParPor: Particles in Pores. Stochastic Modeling of Polydisperse Transport

Liquid flow containing particles in the different types of porous media appear in a large variety of practically important industrial and natural processes. The project aims at developing a stochastic model for the deep bed filtration process in which the polydisperse suspension flow in the polydisperse porous media. Instead of the traditional parabolic Advection-Dispersion Equation (ADE) the novel elliptic PDE based on the Continuous Time Random Walk is adopted for the particle size kinetics. The pore kinetics is either described by the stochastic size exclusion mechanism or the incomplete pore plugging model. In the current phase of the project the computation is only performed for the polydisperse suspension flow in monodisperse porous media. The slower transport speed of the peak and larger tail indicates that the elliptic model is more adaptable for anomalous diffusion. Porosity decline of the porous media and convection acceleration of the flow are observed from the modeling results which agree with the general experimental observation.