Dynamics of a gas bubble penetrating through porous media

Abstract

Porous media have been widely used for liquid-gas separation, benefiting from the strong capillary force generated from the micro/nanoscale pores. Understanding the flow characteristics in pore scale is significant for the design of porous structure. In this study, a numerical model was established to investigate the dynamics of a bubble penetrating through porous media at the pore scale. The two-phase interface was captured using the diffuse interface method. The influence of pore shape, width, and height on the bubble deformation, velocity, and critical pressure was investigated. For the same pore size, the largest bubble centroid velocity and the highest critical pressure exist in the quadrilateral pores compared rather than in the circular or triangular pores. As the pore width decreases, both the average velocity of the bubble centroid and the critical pressure increase. However, the critical pressure is independent of the pore height. As the pore height increases, the average velocity of the bubble centroid increases. A new correlation of the critical pressure for bubble penetration has been proposed, which is a function of the shape factor, the pore width, and the bubble diameter. The findings of this work can contribute to improving the design of porous media for two-phase separation.

Characterization of Bubble Transport in Porous Media Using a Microfluidic Channel

“…While studies on continuum scale can provide a lot of useful information, the behavior of bubbles cannot be directly observed. A few studies reported the effect of fundamental variables on air bubble transport in porous media using computational models or microfluidic devices [16][17][18]. For instance, some studies demonstrated the mechanisms of foam generation in microchannels [19,20].…”

Discrete Bubble Flow in Granular Porous Media via Multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulation

“…Although many studies have comprehensively studied the former three mechanisms Mogro-Campero, 1978, 1979;Saunders et al, 1999), the basic principles and controlling parameters for bubbly flow from deep ground formations to the ground surface, proposed by Etiope and Martinelli (2002), have not been comprehensively investigated and developed. This research objective is, so far, still at an initial stage with a few academic attempts (Ma, 2015;Mahabadi et al, 2018;Chang and Lindquist, 2020;Yi et al, 2022).…”