Spatio-temporal dynamics of surfactant driven secondary invasion in Gaussian pore networks

Abstract

Capillarity-dominated two-phase displacement in porous media often continues beyond the initial invasion-percolation (IP) breakthrough, as surfactants alter interfacial properties and reopen pathways once sealed by capillary forces. This study examines such secondary invasion, where adsorption-driven reductions in interfacial tension and contact-angle shifts lower entry thresholds in yet uninvaded throats, enabling further displacement at a fixed inlet pressure. To capture this process, we employ a time-dependent pore-network framework that couples IP with a reduced-order transport-adsorption module. Local fluxes are governed by Poiseuille flow, interfacial adsorption follows a Langmuir isotherm, and wettability evolution is modeled through a calibrated phenomenological relation. Heterogeneity is prescribed by Gaussian throat-size distributions whose variance controls structural disorder. The resulting invasion trajectories are sigmoidal, consistent with Gaussian cumulative statistics, indicating that surfactant mass-transfer kinetics and network variance primarily rescale invasion timescales while preserving the overall functional form. The framework thus connects interfacial conditioning to time-varying capillary thresholds and reveals how surfactant-mediated processes govern post-breakthrough dynamics in heterogeneous porous systems.