Multiscale Simulations of Reactive Transport

Abstract:

Discrete, particle-based simulations offer distinct advantages when modeling solute transport and chemical reactions. For example, Brownian motion is often used to model diffusion in complex pore networks, and Gillespie-type algorithms allow one to handle multicomponent chemical reactions with uncertain reaction pathways. Yet such models can be computationally more intensive than their continuum-scale counterparts, e.g., advection-dispersion-reaction equations. Combining the discrete and continuum models has a potential to resolve the quantity of interest with a required degree of physicochemical granularity at acceptable computational cost. We present computational examples of such “hybrid models” and discuss the challenges associated with coupling these two levels of description.