AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Particle deposition and clogging: Microstudies of colloids moving through pore spaces

When small particles are dispersed in a liquid, the resulting mixture is called a colloid. In Earth and environmental science, knowledge of how colloidal particles disperse and settle in porous regions of the Earth's crust is important to extracting petroleum, monitoring pollution transport, and treating wastewater. Noting that prior efforts to understand particle deposition processes have been limited by the coarse resolution of measurements, Gaillard et al. (2007) conducted microtomography experiments on an idealized colloid moving through a porous medium of glass beads. By using the sudden increase in the X-ray absorption coefficient that characterizes the presence of an element, the authors were able to visualize particle deposition and the dynamics of clogging. They found that local pore geometry controls particle deposition and that deposits tend to form in a heterogeneous manner.

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