Comparison of Interfacial Partitioning Tracer Test and X-ray Microtomography Measurements of Immiscible Fluid-Fluid Interfacial Areas within the Identical System

Abstract:

The interfacial area between immiscible fluids in porous media has been demonstrated to be a critical entity for improved understanding, characterization, and simulation of multiphase flow and mass transport in the subsurface. Two general methods are available for measuring interfacial areas for 3-D porous-media systems, high-resolution microtomographic imaging and interfacial partitioning tracer tests (IPTT). Each method has their associated advantages and disadvantages. A few prior research efforts have conducted comparative analyses of the two methods, which have generally indicated disparities in measured values for natural geomedia. For these studies, however, interfacial areas were measured for separate samples with each method due to method restrictions. Thus, to date, there has been no comparative analysis conducted wherein the two measurement methods were applied to the exact same sample. To address this issue, trichloroethene-water interfacial areas were measured for a system comprising a well-sorted, natural sand (median grain diameter of 0.323 mm) using both X-ray microtomography and IPTTs. The microtomographic imaging was conducted on the same packed columns used to conduct the IPTTs. Columns were imaged before and after the IPTTs to evaluate potential impacts of the tracer tests on fluid configuration. The interfacial areas measured using IPTT were 4-6 times larger than the microtomography results, which is consistent with previous work. This disparity was attributed to the inability of the microtomography method to characterize interfacial area associated with microscopic surface roughness. The results indicate that both methods provide useful measures of interfacial area as long as their limitations are recognized.