Abstract:

Subsurface reactive transport modeling (RTM) is a new research approach for studying fundamentals of earth sciences, and solving problems of geo-resources and environments with complex physical and chemical processes, such as the safety assessment of waste disposal, groundwater pollution, environmental remediation, CO₂ geological sequestration, and solution mining of metal deposits. We first review the history of RTM, the current status of RTM is then summarized;Furthermore, we discuss challenges raised from coupled processes, spatial scales, treatment of fractured rock and heterogeneous media.We use modeling examples of groundwater quality evolution, nitrate biodegradation and CO₂ geological sequestration, to demonstrate the RTM applicability and broad application prospects. Finally we explore the future directions of the RTM research.

Key words: reactive transport, numerical methods, simulation, coupled processes, TOUGHREACT, geo-resources and environment