Modeling mass transfer processes for multi-phase flow in porous media including fluid-fluid interfacial areas

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Multi-phase flow and transport processes in porous media play an essential role in many environmental, biological, and industrial systems. These processes are especially complex when the phase composition changes, i.e. when mass transfer between phases takes place. It is well known that fluid-fluid interfaces play a central role in mass transfer among various phases. Nevertheless, currently, these interfaces are absent in mass transport theories. Also, almost all macro-scale numerical models completely ignore interfacial areas and either assume thermodynamic equilibrium between the phases or they use empirical functions for their estimation. However, new theories of two-phase flow in porous media have been developed in the last decades which explicitly account for the fluid–fluid interfaces, both without and with interphase mass transfer. The aim of this project is to first compare a two-phase model with interphase mass transfer, accounting for the role of interfacial area, to experimental data. Next, it is planned to extend the new theories to three-phase flow and non-isothermal situations. The new balance equations and constitutive relationships will be implemented into a numerical simulator and applied to an example of carbon dioxide storage in a deep geological formation. When storing carbon dioxide, processes occurring locally within the regions of supercritical carbon dioxide are much more complex and much more dependent on finescale processes than in the large remaining part of the domain of interest. Therefore, a multi-scale–multi-physics approach is envisaged for the solution of this problem.