DEPOSITION OF COLLOIDS IN POROUS-MEDIA - THEORY AND NUMERICAL-SOLUTION

The convective diffusion equation describing the transport of suspended colloidal particles in the vicinity of stationary surfaces in porous media was rigorously formulated by incorporating fundamental theories of mass transport, hydrodynamics of particles in porous media, and colloidal interactions. A finite difference numerical scheme with a variable step size was developed to solve the equation for the concentration distribution of colloidal particles over solid surfaces in porous media, from which the colloid deposition (capture) rates can be evaluated. With the mesh refinement technique employed in the numerical scheme, no oscillations were observed in the numerical solution.