With the aim of identifying the strengths and limitations of current reactive transport models in simulating dissolution-precipitation reactions, this work validates experimentally a newly developed pore-scale model. The model is developed in a way that limits uncertainty parameters, while accounting for the main relevant pore-level physiochemical processes, namely, fluid flow, solutes transport, aqueous speciation, nucleation, and crystals dissolution/growth. The model is validated against two previous microfluidic experiments: one for dissolution only and the other for precipitation and dissolution. The main novelties of this work are: i) it provides modeling-experimental comparisons of simultaneous crystal growth and dissolution, ii) manages to replicate previous experimental results of calcite dissolution without parameters fine-tuning, and iii) provides a direct modeling-experimental comparison in appearance of the first crystallite via nucleation. From the novel numerical-experimental comparisons, this work highlights the knowledge gaps in the existing models and theories. From which, new research directions are recommended to improve, not only the modeling predictive capabilities, but also our current level of understanding of reactive transport processes.
Read more: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2026.123336n
Contact
Prof. Dr. Sergey Churakov
PSI Center for Nuclear Engineering and Sciences
Paul Scherrer Institute PSI
+41 56 310 41 13
sergey.churakov@psi.ch
[English]