PNNL

Abstract

We present that the transport of colloidal particles in porous media can be effectively modeled with a new formulation of dissipative particle dynamics, which augments standard DPD with non-central dissipative shear forces between particles while preserving angular momentum. Our previous studies have demonstrated that the new formulation is able to capture accurately the drag forces as well as the drag torques on colloidal particles that result from the hydrodynamic retardation e?ect. In the present work, we use the new formulation to study the contact e?ciency in colloid ?ltration in saturated porous media. Note that the present model include all transport mechanisms simultaneously, including gravitational sedimentation, interception and Brownian di?usion. Our results of contact e?ciency show a good agreement with the predictions of the correlation equation proposed by Tufenkji and EliMelech, which also incorporate all transport mechanisms simultaneously without the additivity assumption.