Turkoz Emre, Brandman Jeremy, Ertas Deniz, Hunter Gary L
ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company, Annandale, New Jersey 08801, USA.
Phys Rev E. 2023 Jul;108(1-2):015105. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.108.015105.
Nucleation and subsequent expansion of gas bubbles in porous media is relevant to many applications, including oil recovery, carbon storage, and boiling. We have built an experimental setup using microfluidic chips to study the dynamics of bubble growth in porous media. Visualization experiments of the growth of carbon dioxide bubbles in a supersaturated dodecane solution were conducted. We show that bubbles grow as dissolved gas molecules inside the oversaturated liquid diffuse to the gas-liquid interface. Bubbles expanding inside a porous medium displace the liquid phase until the cluster of the gas-filled pores becomes connected to the outlet at the critical gas saturation, which is used as a measure for the total liquid displacement. Our experiments uniquely focus on the growth of a single bubble and show that larger pressure drops lead to faster bubble growth while resulting in lower critical gas saturations. A nonlinear pore-network model is implemented to simulate bubble growth. We compare model predictions for bubble growth dynamics to our experimental results and present the need for further theoretical development to capture deviations from invasion-percolation when a large pressure drop is applied.
多孔介质中气泡的成核及随后的膨胀与许多应用相关，包括石油开采、碳储存和沸腾。我们搭建了一个使用微流控芯片的实验装置，以研究多孔介质中气泡生长的动力学。进行了在过饱和十二烷溶液中二氧化碳气泡生长的可视化实验。我们表明，气泡是随着过饱和液体中的溶解气体分子扩散到气液界面而生长的。在多孔介质中膨胀的气泡会驱替液相，直到充满气体的孔隙簇在临界气体饱和度下与出口相连，临界气体饱和度被用作总液体驱替量的一种度量。我们的实验独特地聚焦于单个气泡的生长，并表明更大的压降会导致更快的气泡生长，同时导致更低的临界气体饱和度。实施了一个非线性孔隙网络模型来模拟气泡生长。我们将气泡生长动力学的模型预测与我们的实验结果进行比较，并指出当施加较大压降时，需要进一步进行理论发展以捕捉与侵渗的偏差。
