Detachment mechanism and reduced evaporation of an evaporative NaCl salt crust

Salt crusts forming at the surface of a porous medium are commonly observed in nature as well as on building materials and pieces of our cultural heritage where they represent a risk for the supporting substrate integrity. Previous research indicates that the salt crust can detach from the porous substrate and severely reduces the evaporation. However, the current understanding of the detachment mechanisms and the reduced evaporation is very limited. In the present experiment, we evidence dissolution–precipitation processes as key mechanisms in the detachment process. We also show that the crust remains wet and the observed reduced evaporation is explained by the formation of tiny pores in the nanometer range and the Kelvin effect. The resulting crust permeability is very low. Combined with previous results, this shows that the crust permeability is highly dependent on the crust formation conditions. More generally, salt structures in a water vapor concentration gradient are shown to be self-propelled systems capable to carry small objects such as, for instance, soil particles. Our study has significance for understanding the impact of salt crusts on evaporation and the associated important phenomena, such as soil salinization and porous material degradation inherent to salt crystallization.

Coupling between internal and external mass transfer during stage-1 evaporation in capillary porous media: Interfacial resistance approach

The coupling boundary condition to be imposed at the evaporative surface of a porous medium is studied from pore network simulations considering the capillary regime. This paper highlights the formation of a thin edge effect region of smaller saturation along the evaporative surface. It is shown that this thin region forms in the breakthrough period at the very beginning of the drying process. The size of this region is studied and shown to be not network size dependent. This region is shown to be the locus of a nonlocal equilibrium effect. The features lead to the consideration of a coupling boundary condition involving an interfacial mass transfer resistance and an external mass transfer resistance. Contrary to previous considerations, it is shown that both resistances depend on the variation of the saturation, i.e., the fluid topology, and the size of the external mass transfer layer, i.e., the mass transfer rate. This is explained by the evolution of the vapor partial pressure distribution at the surface which becomes increasingly heterogeneous during evaporation and depends on both the evolving fluid distribution in the interfacial region and the mass transfer rate. However, the geometric effects due to the configuration of the fluids can be separated from rate effects that arise due to the nonequilibrium mass transport.

The Role of Discrete Capillary Rings in Mass Transfer From the Surface of a Drying Capillary Porous Medium

The mass exchange between the surface of a model capillary porous medium and the adjacent gas-side boundary layer is studied in the limiting condition of isothermal, slow drying. In order to quantify the role and significance of liquid films in the mass exchange process, three-dimensional pore network Monte Carlo simulations are carried out systematically in the presence and absence of discrete capillary rings. The pore network simulations performed with capillary rings show a noticeable delay in transition from the capillary-supported regime to the diffusion-controlled regime. These simulation results differ significantly from the predictions of classical pore network models without liquid films, and they appear to be more consistent with the experiments conducted with real porous systems. As compared to classical pore network models, the pore network model with rings seems to predict favorably the spatiotemporal evolution of wet and dry patches at the medium surface as well as of their relative contributions to the net mass exchange rate. This is apparent when the analytical solution of the commonly used Schlünder’s model is examined against the numerical simulations conducted using classical and ring pore network models.

Numerical Network Modeling of Heat and Moisture Transfer through Capillary-Porous Building Materials

The article presents the modeling of the dynamics of the vapor-gas mixture and heat and mass transfer (sorption-desorption) in the capillary structure of the porous medium. This approach is underpinned by the fact that the porous structure is represented by a system of linear microchannels oriented along the axes of a three-dimensional coordinate system. The equivalent diameter of these channels corresponds to the average pore diameter, and the ratio of the total pore volume to the volume of the entire porous material corresponds to its porosity. The entire channel area is modeled by a set of cubic elements with a certain humidity, moisture content, pressure and temperature. A simulation is carried out taking into account the difference in temperatures of each of the phases: solid, liquid and gas.

The Brooks and Corey Capillary Pressure Model Revisited from Pore Network Simulations of Capillarity-Controlled Invasion Percolation Process

Relating the macroscopic properties of porous media such as capillary pressure with saturation is an on-going problem in many fields, but examining their correlations with microstructural traits of the porous medium is a challenging task due to the heterogeneity of the solid matrix and the limitations of laboratory instruments. Considering a capillarity-controlled invasion percolation process, we examined the macroscopic properties as functions of matrix saturation and pore structure by applying the throat and pore network model. We obtained a relationship of the capillary pressure with the effective saturation from systematic pore network simulations. Then, we revisited and identified the microstructure parameters in the Brooks and Corey capillary pressure model. The wetting phase residual saturation is related to the ratio of standard deviation to the mean radius, the ratio of pore radius to the throat length, and pore connectivity. The size distribution index in the Brooks and Corey capillary pressure model should be more reasonably considered as a meniscus size distribution index rather than a pore size distribution index, relating this parameter with the invasion process and the structural properties. The size distribution index is associated with pore connectivity and the ratio of standard deviation to mean radius (σ0/r¯), increasing with the decline of σ0/r¯ but the same for networks with same σ0/r¯. The identified parameters of the Brooks and Corey model might be further utilized for correlations with other transport properties such as permeability.