Polymer conformation during flow in porous media
D Kawale (TU Delft - Reservoir Engineering, Dutch Polymer Institute)
G.W. Bouwman (TU Delft - ChemE/Chemical Engineering)
S. Sachdev (TU Delft - ChemE/Product and Process Engineering)
P. L.J. L.J. Zitha (TU Delft - Reservoir Engineering)
Michiel T. Kreutzer (TU Delft - ChemE/Chemical Engineering)
WR Rossen (TU Delft - Reservoir Engineering)
Pouyan Boukany (TU Delft - ChemE/Product and Process Engineering)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Molecular conformations of individual polymers during flow through porous media are directly observed by single-DNA imaging in microfluidics. As the Weissenberg number increases during flow (Wi > 1), we observe two types of elastic instabilities: (a) stationary dead-zone and (b) time-dependant dead-zone washing. When stretched polymer chains enter a dead-zone, they first re-coil and, once inside the dead-zone, they rotate and re-stretch again. The probability distribution of DNA chains under the stretched condition inside the dead-zone is found to be heterogeneous with a broad distribution.
help_outline