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Special Issue: Reactive Transport in Porous Materials: Current Trends and Challenges

Submission status
Closed

Reactive transport, accounting for advection, diffusion, dispersion, and a multitude of chemical reactions, is a common process in many porous media. Traditionally, the research of reactive transport is mainly carried out in geoscience. However, in recent decades, it has been expanded to different porous materials, such as woods, concretes, and biomaterials, which makes the field of reactive transport a highly multidisciplinary area. Even though the fundamental mechanisms and theories of reactive transport for different porous materials are similar, due to differences in the microstructure, physical properties, and chemical compositions, the aims of studying reactive transport in different porous materials significantly vary. For instance, transport of aggressive agents (e.g., chloride, sulfate) in concrete can react with hydration products and thus lead to material degradation or induce corrosion of steel. After steel corrosion, ion species can then transport and precipitate in the pore network and alter the microstructure. In nuclear waste repositories, chemicals in groundwater may penetrate the canister protection material, generally bentonite, while chemical reactions and self-swelling behavior change the properties of bentonite. Woods and biomaterials are sometimes used as functional materials to act as reaction reservoirs; therefore, fluid transport in these materials is the key to affecting the reaction efficiency.

Because these distinct fields have evolved in different ways from one another, their research methods of reactive transport are based on various terminologies, assumptions, and levels of spatial scale. We will hold a workshop to bring researchers and engineers from different research disciplines and discuss current trends and challenges of reactive transport in their fields. Speakers will be researchers and engineers invited from different research disciplines, including but not limited to geoscience, cementitious materials, corrosion science, wood materials, and nuclear wastes storage. It will bridge the gap in research methods between these different disciplines. Speakers are highly expected to present their original research results on either experimental methods, data analysis, models, or numerical simulations. These research results are encouraged to submit to the proposed Special Issue.

Editors

  • Zhidong Zhang Zhidong Zhang , 

    Zhidong Zhang

    ETH Zürich Institute for Building Materials (IfB) Leopold-Ruzicka-Weg 4 CH-8093 Zürich Switzerland e-mail: zhidongz@ifb.baug.ethz.ch

  • Ueli Angst Ueli Angst , 

    Ueli Angst

    ETH Zürich Institute for Building Materials (IfB) Leopold-Ruzicka-Weg 4 8093 Zürich Switzerland e-mail: ueli.angst@ifb.baug.ethz.ch

  • Barbara Lothenbach Barbara Lothenbach  &

    Barbara Lothenbach

    EMPA Überlandstrasse 129 8600 Dübendorf Switzerland e-mail: barbara.lothenbach@empa.ch

  • Burkan Isgor Burkan Isgor

    Burkan Isgor

    Oregon State University School of Civil and Construction Engineering 101 Kearney Hall 1491 SW Campus Way Corvallis, OR 97331 USA e-mail: burkan.isgor@oregonstate.edu

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