Title: Measurement and estimation of organic-liquid/water interfacial areas for several natural porous media.

Authors: Brusseau, M L; Narter, M; Schnaar, G; Marble, J

Published In Environ Sci Technol, (2009 May 15)

Abstract: The objective of this study was to quantitatively characterize the impact of porous-medium texture on interfacial area between immiscible organic liquid and water residing within natural porous media. Synchrotron X-ray microtomography was used to obtain high-resolution, three-dimensional images of solid and liquid phases in packed columns. The image data were processed to generate quantitative measurements of organic-liquid/water interfacial area and of organic-liquid blob sizes. Ten porous media, comprising a range of median grain sizes, grain-size distributions, and geochemical properties, were used to evaluate the impact of porous-medium texture on interfacial area. The results show that fluid-normalized specific interfacial area (A) and maximum specific interfacial area (Am) correlate very well to inverse median grain diameter. These functionalities were shown to result from a linear relationship between effective organic-liquid blob diameter and median grain diameter. These results provide the basis for a simple method for estimating specific organic-liquid/water interfacial area as a function of fluid saturation for a given porous medium. The availability of a method for which the only parameter needed is the simple-to-measure median grain diameter should be of great utility for a variety of applications.

PubMed ID: 19544863

MeSH Terms: Organic Chemicals/analysis*; Organic Chemicals/chemistry*; Porosity; Water; Wettability