Advection-diffusion in a porous medium with fractal geometry: fractional transport and crossovers on time scales

In a porous fractal medium, the transport dynamics is sometimes anomalous as well as the crossover between numerous transport regimes occurs. In this paper, we experimentally investigate the mass transfer of the diffusing agents of various classes in the composite porous particle with fractal geometry. It is shown that transport mechanisms differ at short and long times. At the beginning, pure advection is observed, whereas the longtime transport follows a convective mechanism. Moreover, the longtime transport experiences either Fickian or non-Fickian kinetics depending on the diffusing agent. The non-Fickian transport is justified for the diffusing agent with higher adsorption energy. Therefore, we speculate that non-Fickian transport arises due to the strong irreversible adsorption sticking of the diffusing molecules on the surface of the porous particle. For the distinguishing of the transport regimes, an approach admitting the transformations of the experimental data and the relevant analytic solutions in either semi-logarithmic or logarithmic coordinates is developed. The time-fractional advection-diffusion equation is used on a phenomenological basis to describe the experimental data exhibiting non-Fickian kinetics. The obtained anomalous diffusion exponent corresponds to the superdiffusive transport.

Automated summary

The study found that in composite porous particles, different classes of diffusing agents exhibit different transport mechanisms in the short and long term, with long-term transport following either Fickian or non-Fickian kinetics depending on the diffusing agent's adsorption energy. The occurrence of non-Fickian transport may be attributed to strong irreversible adsorption sticking of diffusing molecules on the surface of the porous particle.