Comparison of Heat and Mass Transport at the Micro-Scale

E. Holzbecher[1], S. Oehlmann[1]
[1]Georg-August Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Published in 2012

Phenomena of heat and mass transfer are often compared, in various porous media applications. Questions of practical interest are, for example, if tracers can be used for the prediction of heat flow, or vice versa if heat can be utilized as, possibly retarded, tracer for predicting the migration of contaminants, nutrients or other substances. Using numerical modelling in artificial porous media we compute heat and mass transport for pore length scales in the range of micrometers. The simulations show different behaviour for heat and for mass, which is due to the different values of the relevant parameters (high Lewis number) and the different physics of transport in the solid phase.