CATCH

The objectives of the CATCH project are the understanding and the prediction of changes of transport parameters in geological media in response to spatial and temporal porosity evolution. In particular, it intends to define new porosity/diffusivity relationships to replace Archie’s law whose limitations have been shown in porous systems subject to precipitation processes.

The long-term effectiveness of deep subsurface storage systems largely relies on our understanding and modeling capability of key relationships between natural media and engineered components. Changes in the mineral matrix due to dissolution-precipitation reactions due to perturbations caused by geological applications can lead to changes in the macroscopic transport properties of the geological medium. Predictions can be made by considering transport processes coupled to chemical reactivity, but current reactive transport models (RTM) have severe limitations due to an incomplete understanding and quantification of the underlying mechanisms and processes. Using a combination of multiple methods and multi-scale characterizations, we intend to make a fundamental step forward in the predictive ability of RTM, based on bridging the pore and continuum scales.