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Updated: May 13, 2026

Microfluidic Devices for Characterizing Pore-scale Event Processes in Porous Media for Oil Recovery Applications
Published on: January 16, 2018
Interface pinning of immiscible gravity-exchange flows in porous media
Benzhong Zhao1, Christopher W MacMinn, Michael L Szulczewski
1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Building 48, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract:
We study the gravity-exchange flow of two immiscible fluids in a porous medium and show that, in contrast with the miscible case, a portion of the initial interface remains pinned at all times. We elucidate, by means of micromodel experiments, the pore-level mechanism responsible for capillary pinning at the macroscale. We propose a sharp-interface gravity-current model that incorporates capillarity and quantitatively explains the experimental observations, including the x~t(1/2) spreading behavior at intermediate times and the fact that capillarity stops a finite-release current. Our theory and experiments suggest that capillary pinning is potentially an important, yet unexplored, trapping mechanism during CO(2) sequestration in deep saline aquifers.
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