Impact of fluid deformation on mixing-induced chemical reactions in heterogeneous flows

Fast chemical reactions in geophysical flows are controlled by fluid mixing, which perturbs local chemical equilibria and thus triggers chemical reactions. Spatial fluctuations in the flow velocity lead to deformation of material fluid elements, which form the support volumes of transported chemical species. We develop an approach based on a lamellar representation of fluid mixing that provides a direct link between fluid deformation, the distribution of concentration gradients, and the upscaled reaction rates for fast reversible reactions. The temporal evolution of effective reaction rates is determined by the flow topology and the distribution of local velocity gradients. This leads to a significant increase of the reaction efficiency, which turns out to be orders of magnitude larger than in homogeneous flow. This approach allows for the systematic evaluation of the temporal evolution of equilibrium reaction rates and establishes a direct link between the reaction efficiency and the spatial characteristics of the underlying flow field as quantified by the deformation of material fluid elements. © 2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Borgne, Tanguy Le, Ginn, Timothy R., Dentz, Marco
Other Authors:	European Research Council
Format:	artículo biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	American Geophysical Union 2014-11-28
Subjects:	Flow topology, Fluid deformation, Lamella, Mixing, Porous media, Reactive transport,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10261/140811 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000781
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