Single layer porous media with entrapped minerals for microscale studies of multiphase flow.

The behaviour of minerals (i.e. salts) such as sodium chloride and calcite in porous media is very important in various applications such as weathering of artworks, oil recovery and CO2 sequestration. We report a novel method for manufacturing single layer porous media in which minerals can be entrapped in a controlled way in order to study their dissolution and recrystallization. In addition, our manufacturing method is a versatile tool for creating monomodal, bimodal or multimodal pore size microporous media with controlled porosity ranging from 25% to 50%. These micromodels allow multiphase flows to be quantitatively studied with different microscopy techniques and can serve to validate numerical models that can subsequently be extended to the 3D situation where visualization is experimentally difficult. As an example of their use, deliquescence (dissolution by moisture absorption) of entrapped NaCl crystals is studied; our results show that the invasion of the resulting salt solution is controlled by the capillary pressure within the porous network. For hydrophilic porous media, the liquid preferentially invades the small pores whereas in a hydrophobic network the large pores are filled. Consequently, after several deliquescence/drying cycles in the hydrophilic system, the salt is transported towards the outside of the porous network via small pores; in hydrophobic micromodels, no salt migration is observed. Numerical simulations based on the characteristics of our single layer pore network agree very well with the experimental results and give more insight into the dynamics of salt transport through porous media.

Ion Transport and Precipitation Kinetics as Key Aspects of Stress Generation on Pore Walls Induced by Salt Crystallization.

The stress generation on pore walls due to the growth of a sodium chloride crystal in a confined aqueous solution is studied from evaporation experiments in microfluidic channels in conjunction with numerical computations of crystal growth. The study indicates that the stress buildup on the pore walls is a highly transient process taking place over a very short period of time (in less than 1 s in our experiments). The analysis makes clear that what matters for the stress generation is not the maximum supersaturation at the onset of the crystal growth but the supersaturation at the interface between the solution and the crystal when the latter is about to be confined between the pore walls. The stress generation is summarized in a simple stress diagram involving the pore aspect ratio and the Damkhöler number characterizing the competition between the precipitation reaction kinetics and the ion transport towards the growing crystal. This opens up the route for a better understanding of the damage of porous materials induced by salt crystallization, an important issue in Earth sciences, reservoir engineering, and civil engineering.

Filter-less submicron hydrodynamic size sorting.

We propose a simple microfluidic device able to separate submicron particles (critical size ∼0.1 µm) from a complex sample with no filter (minimum channel dimension being 5 µm) by hydrodynamic filtration. A model taking into account the actual velocity profile and hydrodynamic resistances enables prediction of the chip sorting properties for any geometry. Two design families are studied to obtain (i) small sizes within minutes (low-aspect ratio, two-level chip) and (ii) micron-sized sorting with a µL flow rate (3D architecture based on lamination). We obtain quantitative agreement of sorting performances both with experiments and with numerical solving, and determine the limits of the approach. We therefore demonstrate a passive, filter-less sub-micron size sorting with a simple, robust, and easy to fabricate design.