Macro-scale modeling concepts for bacterial growth and transport in advective two-phase porous media systems
Final Report Abstract
Porous media provide excellent living conditions for bacteria because their habitat is protected but still allows for continuous nutrient supply. As a consequence, microorganisms exist and make a substantial contribution to many environmental and engineered porous media systems. When these porous media systems are used for engineered or industrial applications it is important to understand the interaction between flow, transport and microbiological processes. In this project, artificial porous structures between two glass plates, referred to as glass-silicon-glass micromodels, were used to investigate the behavior of bacteria in porous media saturated by two phases. These transparent quasi two-dimensional micromodels allowed the direct observation of bacterial processes, like e.g. growth, transport and attachment, by microscopic analysis. The detailed interpretation of the experimental results by image processing allowed to generate spatially and temporally resolved data of bacterial counts. High microbial activity was observed near to gas-water interfaces and also near the grains and the glass plate of the micromodel. In addition, it was observed that an irreversible immobilization of microbes takes place during the drying-out of individual pores. Growth under a continuous supply of nutrients was observed to slow down and approach maximum cell density. Based on these observations a new mathematical model describing the bacterial growth and movement in two-phase porous media systems was developed. The model was parameterized based on experimental data and numerically implemented based on DuMux. Predictive studies were performed on the scale of a micromodel and on field scale.
Publications
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Numerical modeling of microbial activity in underground hydrogen storages”. In: Reservoir Microbiology Forum
B. Hagemann
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Impact of Pore Clogging by Bacteria on Underground Hydrogen Storage. Transport in Porous Media, 139(1), 89-108.
Eddaoui, N.; Panfilov, M.; Ganzer, L. & Hagemann, B.
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Utilization of microfluidics to investigate microbial activity in underground hydrogen storage. In: 2nd Geoscience & Engineering in Energy Transition Conference. Vol. 2021. 1. European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers. 2021, pp. 1–5
G. Strobel, M. Wirth, B. Hagemann & L. Ganzer
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Benchmark study for the simulation of Underground Hydrogen Storage operations. Computational Geosciences, 26(6), 1367-1378.
Hogeweg, Sebastian; Strobel, Gion & Hagemann, Birger
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Development and experimental calibration of a bio-reactive transport model for UHS. In: Geo- Hydrogen-Hannover (Geo-H2)
B. Hagemann
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Experimental and numerical investigation of microbial growth in two-phase saturated porous media at the pore-scale. Sustainable Energy & Fuels, 7(16), 3939-3948.
Strobel, Gion; Zawallich, Jan; Hagemann, Birger; Ganzer, Leonhard & Ippisch, Olaf
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Micromodel simulation grid data. Version V1. GRO.data
B. Hagemann, G. Strobel & M. Wirth
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DuMux code for structured microbial transport. Version V1. GRO.data,
B. Hagemann
