A CONTINUUM MODEL FOR THE LIQUID-TO-GAS PHASE CHANGE AND GROWTH IN A POROUS MEDIUM AT CONSTANT WITHDRAWAL RATES

摘要

We develop an effective continuum model to describe the heterogeneous nucleation and subsequent growth of a gas phase from a supersaturated, slightly compressible binary liquid in a porous medium, driven by solute diffusion. The evolution of the gas results from the withdrawal of the liquid at a constant rate. The model addresses two stages before the onset of bulk gas flow, nucleation and gas phase growth. We assume negligible gradients due to gravity or viscous forces, thus the critical gas saturation, which signals the onset of bulk gas flow, is only a function of the nucleation fraction. We show that the important quantities characterizing the process, such as the fraction of pores that host activated sites, the deviation from thermodynamic equilibrium, the maximum supersaturation in the system and the critical gas saturation depend crucially on the nucleation characteristics of the medium.