Relative rates of fluid advection, elemental diffusion and replacement govern reaction front patterns

Replacement reactions during fluid infiltration into porous media, rocks and buildings are known to have important implications for reservoir development, ore formation as well as weathering. Natural observations and experiments have shown that in such systems the shape of reaction fronts can vary significantly ranging from smooth, rough to highly irregular. It remains unclear what process-related knowledge can be derived from these reaction front patterns. In this contribution we show a numerical approach to test the effect of relative rates of advection, diffusion, and reaction on the development of reaction fronts patterns in granular aggregates with permeable grain boundaries. The numerical model takes (i) fluid infiltration along permeable grain boundaries, (ii) reactions and (iii) elemental diffusion into account. We monitor the change in element concentration within the fluid, while reactions occur at a pre-defined rate as a function of the local fluid concentration. In non-dimensional phase space using Péclet and Damköhler numbers, results show that there are no rough fronts without advection (Péclet<70) nor if the reaction is too fast (Damköhler>10−3). As advection becomes more dominant and reaction slower, roughness develops across several grains with a full microstructure mimicking replacement in the most extreme cases. The reaction front patterns show an increase in roughness with increasing Péclet number from Péclet 10 to 100 but then a decrease in roughness towards higher Péclet numbers controlled by the Damköhler number. Our results indicate that reaction rates are crucial for pattern formation and that the shape of reaction fronts is only partly due to the underlying transport mechanism.