Towards optimum permeability reduction in porous media using biofilm growth simulations

Abstract

While biological clogging of porous systems can be problematic in numerous processes (e.g., microbial enhanced oil recovery-MEOR), it is targeted during bio-barrier formation to control sub-surface pollution plumes in ground water. In this simulation study, constant pressure drop (CPD) and constant volumetric flow rate (CVF) operational modes for nutrient provision for biofilm growth in a porous system are considered with respect to optimum (minimum energy requirement for nutrient provision) permeability reduction for bio-barrier applications. Biofilm growth is simulated using a Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) simulation platform complemented with an individual-based biofilm model (IbM). A biomass detachment technique has been included using a fast marching level set (FMLS) method that models the propagation of the biofilm-liquid interface with a speed proportional to the adjacent velocity shear field. The porous medium permeability reduction is simulated for both operational modes using a range of biofilm strengths. For stronger biofilms, less biomass deposition and energy input are required to reduce the system permeability during CPD operation, whereas CVF is more efficient at reducing the permeability of systems containing weaker biofilms.

Pore-Network Modeling of Solute Transport and Biofilm Growth in Porous Media

“…It is worth noting that biomass detachment is a complicated process which is mainly in the form of erosion or sloughing. For more detail, one can refer to the Introduction in Pintelon et al (2009). In pore throat ij, the dispersivity of solute in the water phase is approximated by TaylorAris dispersion formula (Aris 1956)…”

“…When nutrients are continuously available, biofilm keeps growing on solid walls. This would finally lead to the condition of bioclogging in porous media (Baveye et al 1998;Pintelon et al 2009). Up to now, there have been many applications by using biofilm such as biobarriers, microbial-enhanced oil recovery (Afrapoli et al 2011), and bioremediation.…”

A Network Model for the Kinetics of Bioclogged Flow Diversion for Enhanced Oil Recovery

“…Several numerical models have been developed to describe biofilm growth. There exist continuum Darcy models [23], bacterially-based models [12], Lattice-Boltzmann-based simulations [13,17] and Pore Network Models (PNM) [6,22,20,5,7]. Frequently, in biofilm growth models, the porous media consists of three components: the grains, the biofilm which grows on the walls of the solid grains and the liquid in the pore space.…”

“…Frequently, in biofilm growth models, the porous media consists of three components: the grains, the biofilm which grows on the walls of the solid grains and the liquid in the pore space. The grains are assumed to be impermeable to the liquid and the nutrients, therefore, hydrodynamic model equations are written only for the liquid and biofilm [13]. In the flow regimes that we are considering now, we also assume that the grains are non-deformable.…”

Solute Mass Exchange Between Water Phase and Biofilm for a Single Pore

“…In another line of research, pore-scale modeling has been employed in the studies of reactive transport in porous media with biofilm (Dupin et al 2001;Pintelon et al 2009). It not only sheds light on physical fundamentals of flow and transport at the pore scale, but also can provide constitutive relationships which appear in upscaled macroscale transport equations, like effective dispersive tensor, effective reaction rate, and relationship between permeability and biofilm volume fraction (Ezeuko et al 2011;Graf von der Schulenburg et al 2009;Hesse et al 2009;Kim and Fogler 2000;Li et al 2006;Stewart and Kim 2004;Suchomel et al 1998a, b;Thullner et al 2002;Thullner and Baveye 2008).…”