Abstract
Migration of variably sized fines or geogenic colloids is a significant concern for the long-term efficiency of aquifer management and reservoir injection and extraction operations. Characterizing the migration of colloids in porous media has been widely studied; however, few studies have quantified sub-core colloidal transport behavior and related this to bulk sample observations under transient conditions. In this study, the transport of colloidal kaolinite through sand packs is analyzed using UV–Vis spectrophotometry and positron emission tomography (PET). PET imaging was completed by imaging an aqueous pulse of suspended radiolabeled kaolinite under single-phase flow conditions. The experimental PET imaging approach allows for the accurate 4-D quantification of changes in colloidal kaolinite transport, attachment, and detachment properties at the sub-centimeter scale. This study provides a novel approach for the quantification of inorganic colloid transport in geologic porous media, providing a foundation for future work to be done on more complex and heterogeneous systems under transient flow and fluid chemistry conditions.
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Acknowledgements
All data and Python scripts used in this study are permanently available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7799764. The experimental system used for column and imaging experiments was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2002412. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Contributions by CZ and experiments were supported as part of the Center for Mechanistic Control of Water-Hydrocarbon-Rock Interactions in Unconventional and Tight Oil Formations (CMC-UF), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science under DOE (BES) Award DE-SC0019165. The authors would like to thank William Warren for laboratory measurements and preparation work.
Funding
This work was supported in part by the donors of ACS Petroleum Research Fund under Doctoral New Investigator Grant 66040-DNI9. C.Z. served as Principal Investigator on ACS PRF 66040-DNI9 that provided support for C.S. Support for C.S. was also provided in part by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
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Sutton, C., Zahasky, C. In Situ Quantification of Colloidal Kaolinite Transport and Attachment in Porous Media Using Positron Emission Tomography. Transp Porous Med 151, 1755–1775 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-024-02093-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-024-02093-w