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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Solid Earth Geophysics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1493305
This article is part of the Research Topic Experimental and Numerical Simulations of Rock Physics View all 12 articles

A semi-Lagrangian method for the direct numerical simulation of crystallization and precipitation at the pore scale

Provisionally accepted
Sarah Perez Sarah Perez 1,2,3Jean-Matthieu Etancelin Jean-Matthieu Etancelin 1,2Philippe Poncet Philippe Poncet 1,2*
  • 1 Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, Pau, France
  • 2 UMR5142 Laboratoire de mathématiques et de leurs applications Pau (LMAP), Pau, Aquitaine, France
  • 3 The Lyell Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This article introduces a new efficient particle method for the numerical simulation of crystallization and precipitation at the pore scale of real rock geometries extracted by X-Ray tomography. It is based on the coupling between superficial velocity models of porous media, Lagrangian description of chemistry using Transition-State-Theory, involving underlying grids. Its ability to successfully compute dissolution process has been established in the past, and is presently generalized to precipitation and crystallization by means of adsorption modeling. Numerical simulations of mineral CO 2 trapping are provided, showing evidence of clogging/non-clogging regimes, and one of the main results is the introduction of a new non-dimensional number needed for this characterization.

    Keywords: Digital Rock Physics (DRP), Crystallization, Mineral trapping, CO2 storage, precipitation, Clogging, Lagrangian methods, Superficial velocity

    Received: 08 Sep 2024; Accepted: 09 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Perez, Etancelin and Poncet. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Philippe Poncet, Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, Pau, France

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.