Microscale Chaotic Mixing as a Driver for Chemical Reactions in Porous Media

Mixing-induced reactions play a key role in a large range of biogeochemical and contaminant transport processes in the subsurface. Fluid flow through porous media was recently shown to exhibit chaotic mixing dynamics at the pore scale, enhancing microscale concentration gradients and controlling mixing rates. While this phenomenon is likely ubiquitous in environmental systems, it is not known how it affects chemical reactions. Here, we use refractive index matching and laser-induced fluorescence imaging of a bimolecular redox reaction to investigate the consequence of pore scale chaotic mixing on the reaction rates. The overestimation of measured reaction rates by the classical macrodispersion model highlights the persistence of incomplete mixing on the pore scale. We show that the reaction product formation is controlled by microscale chaotic mixing, which induces an exponential increase of the mixing interface and of the reaction rates. We derive a reactive transport model that captures experimental results and predicts that chaotic mixing has a first order control on reaction rates across a large range of time scales and Péclet and Damköhler numbers. These findings provide a new framework for understanding, assessing, and predicting mixing-induced reactions and their role on the fate and mobility of environmental compounds in natural porous media.