Time-Dependent Pore Filling

Capillarity traps fluids in porous media during immiscible fluid displacement. Most field situations involve relatively long time scales, such as hydrocarbon migration into reservoirs, resource recovery, nonaqueous phase liquid remediation, geological CO2 storage, and sediment-atmosphere interactions. Yet laboratory studies and numerical simulations of capillary phenomena rarely consider the impact of time on these processes. We use time-lapse microphotography to record the evolution of saturation in air- or hydrocarbon-filled capillary tubes submerged in water to investigate long-term pore filling phenomena beyond imbibition. Microphotographic sequences capture a lively pore filling history where various concurrent physical phenomena coexist. Dissolution and diffusion play a central role. Observations indicate preferential transport of the wetting liquid along corners, vapor condensation, capillary flow induced by asymmetrical interfaces, and interface pinning that defines the diffusion length. Other processes include internal snap-offs, fluid redistribution, and changes in wettability as fluids dissolve into each other. Overall, the rate of pore filling is diffusion-controlled for a given interfacial configuration; diffusive transport takes place at a constant rate for pinned interfaces and is proportional to the square root of time for free interfaces where the diffusion length increases with time.