Rayleigh fractionation in high-Rayleigh-number solutal convection in porous media

Abstract

We study the fractionation of two components between a well-mixed gas and a saturated convecting porous layer. Motivated by geological carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) storage we assume that convection is driven only by the dissolved concentration of the first component, while the second acts as a tracer with increased diffusivity. Direct numerical simulations for convection at high Rayleigh numbers reveal that the partitioning of the components, in general, does not follow a Rayleigh fractionation trend, as commonly assumed. Initially, increases in tracer diffusivity also increase its flux, because the diffusive boundary layer penetrates deeper into the flow. However, for D 2 ≥ 10 D 1 , where D 1 and D 2 are, respectively, the diffusion coefficients of CO 2 and the tracer in water, the transverse leakage of tracer between up-and down-welling plumes reduces the tracer flux. Rayleigh fractionation between components is only realized in the limit of two gases with very large differences in solubility and initial concentration in the gas.

Reduced modeling of porous media convection in a minimal flow unit at large Rayleigh number

“…Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a fluid-saturated porous layer is a prime example of a spatiotemporal pattern-forming system that exhibits rich nonlinear dynamics despite its comparably simple mathematical formulation [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Recently, there has been renewed interest in this system owing to the potential impact of buoyancy-driven convective flows on geological carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) storage, which is one promising means of reducing CO 2 emissions into the atmosphere [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. In a wide horizontal porous layer uniformly heated from below and cooled from above, the basic conduction state becomes unstable via a stationary bifurcation when the Rayleigh number Ra > 4π 2 [1,2], and convection sets in as steady O(1) aspect-ratio rolls.…”