Transport Instabilities of Hazardous Contaminants in a Microscale Soil Sample Under Thermal Flow of Supercritical CO ₂

This work reveals the transient dynamics of supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) under a joint heat and mass interactions with resident polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sedimentary microporous media. A variant of Multiphase Color Fluid Lattice Boltzmann model is developed to simulate spatiotemporal evolution of sCO2 front with degradation of a 5 μm mass-film of resident PAHs. The injection conditions of sCO2 range from 305 K to 315 K, and from 8 MPa to 10 MPa, with a mass flow rate of 0.05–0.15 kg/min. It has been found in this study that the growth of clusters reveals a critical operating time to promote the solvation power of sCO2. However, the cluster of such contaminants is affected by a secondary degradation inside the pore throats of the microporous. The heat and mass coefficients are remarkably relied on the nature of the contaminants and their clustering/clogging processes inside the pores. Hence, the saturation amount of CO2 will jump from a prompt movement to a quick equilibrium state while facing the balanced phase of clustering/degradation of resident contaminants inside the microporous media.