Towards multi-scale modelling and simulation of colloid transport in porous media

The simulation of flow and transport and porous media is of pivotal importance in many fields. Our reference application is the remediation of contaminated aquifers through the injections of nano-scale zero-valent iron particles. The efficiency of this process is influenced by phenomena occurring at three different scales: - Micro-scale: molecular description for forces and surface interactions between particles and solid grains, Lagrangian description - Pore-scale: continuum models for fluid and particle concentration in the pore geometry. Stokes or Navier-Stokes flow coupled with advection-diffusion-reaction problem - Field-scale: porous media equations for flow and particle transport, Darcy law coupled with advection-diffusion-reaction problem The objective of our work is to derive a unified kinetic model to take into account the relevant phenomena occurring at the different scales and propose efficient numerical techniques to approximate the solutions.