Migration and entrapment of mercury in porous media

Elemental mercury is an immiscible liquid with high density and high interfacial tension with water. Its movement in the saturated subsurface region is therefore considered as a case of two phase flow involving mercury and water and is expected to be governed by gravity, viscous, hydrodynamic and capillary forces. This paper investigates the migration and capillary entrapment of mercury in the subsurface based on controlled laboratory capillary pressure–saturation experiments. In the first place, entrapment of mercury was observed in homogeneous porous media. Residual mercury saturation and van Genuchten's parameters for mercury entrapment were generated. These data will provide vital inputs for mercury migration and entrapment models. Secondly, the dependency of residual saturation on fluid properties was brought out in this work by comparing the experimental results of mercury–water system and DNAPL–water systems. Capillary forces were large enough in mercury–water systems to counteract the high gravity forces and caused the entrapment of mercury. Large density differences between mercury and water lead to a high Bond number and thus a low residual mercury saturation was obtained which corroborates with existing DNAPL theories. However, the inverse relationship between residual saturation and capillary number established for NAPL–water systems cannot be compared with mercury–water systems. Moreover, the critical capillary numbers and Bond numbers to mobilize DNAPLs may not be applicable to mercury since mercury has a low capillary number and high Bond number. This work has enabled the understanding of the process of migration and entrapment of mercury and provided useful inputs for two phase flow models specific to mercury–water systems. It has also highlighted the influence of fluid properties on entrapment and mobilization particularly for highly dense, viscous fluid which also possesses high interfacial tension with water.