Mineral reactivity and porous media

Mineral reactivity and porous media

This teaching unit is devoted to the analysis of porous media at the small scale. It may appear awkward that the topic is of interest for engineers mostly committed with problems and studies in hydrosystems with characteristic sizes of 10 m to a few kilometers. This notwithstanding, some features such as complex transfers and pollutions give or modify the chemical signature of water at the local scale where the complex interfaces solid-liquid-bacterial load (biofilm) are active. Regarding the topic of porous media, this unit is not a class of rock mechanics. It is intended to analyze and explain the reasons why a porous medium modifies the physico-chemistry and the thermo-kinetics of reactive systems, and, as a feedback, which modifications of the porous medium can be expected from water-rock interactions.

Porous media

• Mineral and chemical heterogeneity of natural rocks.
• Water and solute distributions at the solid-liquid interfaces.
• Content and equilibration of structural and composition water in porous media.

Mineral reactivity

• Reminder of thermodynamics.
• Mineral stability and aqueous speciation.
• Equilibrium, kinetics, and thermos-kinetics models.
• Sorption models at the local scale.
• Dissolution, precipitation and clogging in porous media.

Colloidal systems

• Properties of colloids (size, specific surface area, electric charge, porosity …).
• Reactivity of colloids.
• Models of aggregation of colloidal particles.
• Colloids as conveyers of various pollutions (organic, metallic, biotic).
• Colloidal transport in surface and subsurface waters.

Biotic systems

• Microbial populations in surface and subsurface waters.
• Identification of bacterial populations – "Omics" tools.
• Biotransformation of organic and inorganic contaminants.
• Biofilms, sorption and reaction interfaces, Imaging.

Note. The Items "colloidal systems" and "Biotic systems" are mostly treated by way of dedicated seminars and conferences in the spirit of getting a general overview on the topics instead of sharp knowledge.