Stochastic-convective transport with nonlinear reaction and mixing: application to intermediate-scale experiments in aerobic biodegradation in saturated porous media

Aerobic biodegradation of benzoate by Pseudomonas cepacia sp. in a saturated heterogeneous porous medium was simulated using the stochastic-convective reaction (SCR) approach. A laboratory flow cell was randomly packed with low permeability silt-size inclusions in a high permeability sand matrix. In the SCR upscaling approach, the characteristics of the flow field are determined by the breakthrough of a conservative tracer. Spatial information on the actual location of the heterogeneities is not used. The mass balance equations governing the nonlinear and multicomponent reactive transport are recast in terms of reactive transports in each of a finite number of discrete streamtubes. The streamtube ensemble members represent transport via a steady constant average velocity per streamtube and a conventional Fickian dispersion term, and their contributions to the observed breakthroughs are determined by flux-averaging the streamtube solute concentrations. The resulting simulations were compared to those from a high-resolution deterministic simulation of the reactive transport, and to alternative ensemble representations involving (i) effective Fickian travel time distribution function, (ii) purely convective streamtube transport, and (iii) streamtube ensemble subset simulations. The results of the SCR simulation compare favorably to that of a sophisticated high-resolution deterministic approach.