Study of hydrodynamically and chemically induced in-situ colloidal particle release in porous media

Abstract

In this work an attempt was made to experimentally study the effect of different parameters like flowrate, void fraction, ionic strength, valence of anion and pH on release of kaolin particle from kaolin-sand mixture bed. It was observed that plugging of the released particle occur in the bed, which was explained, by size exclusion and agglomeration of particles. It was found that there exists a critical velocity for the release of kaolin and it was found graphically to be 0.017cm/sec. It was observed that void fraction has minimal effect on the release of kaolin particle. The effect of pH and ionic strength on release was explained by DLVO theory. The Cl-, SO4-2, and PO4-3 ions are used to study the anion valence effect on the release. It was found that effect of anion valence on the kaolin release does not follow the Schulze-Hardy rule.