Experimental Visualization of Solute Transport and Mass Transfer Processes in Two-Dimensional Conductivity Fields with Connected Regions of High Conductivity

Solute transport displaying mass transfer behavior (i.e., tailing) occurs in many aquifers and soils. Spatial patterns of hydraulic conductivity may play a role because of both advection and diffusion through isolated low conductivity areas. We demonstrated such processes in laboratory experiments designed to visualize solute transport through a thin chamber (40 cm × 20 cm × 0.64 cm thick) packed with glass beads and containing circular emplacements of smaller glass beads with lower conductivity. The experiments used three different contrasts of conductivity between the large-bead matrix and the emplacements, targeting three different regimes of solute transport: low contrast, targeting macrodispersion; intermediate contrast, targeting advection-dominated mass transfer between the high-conductivity regions and the emplacements; and high contrast, targeting diffusion-dominated mass transfer. Use of a strong light source, a high-resolution CCD camera, and a colorimetric dye produced images with a spatial resolution of about 400 μm and a concentration range of approximately 2 orders of magnitude. These images confirm the existence of the three different regimes, and we observed tailing driven by both advection and diffusion. Outflow concentration measured by spectrophotometer achieved 3 orders of magnitude in concentration range and showed good agreement with known models in the case of dispersion and diffusive mass transfer, with estimated parameters close to a priori predictions. Existing models for diffusive mass transfer did not fit the breakthrough curves from the intermediate-contrast chamber, but a model of slow advection through cylinders did. Thus, both breakthrough curves and chamber images confirm that different contrasts in small-scale K lead to different regimes of solute transport and thus require different models of upscaled solute transport.