Electric field driven flow in natural porous media

Electric fields were applied to fluid-saturated packed sand beds (0.23 ± 0.03 mm average pore diameter), and the effects on the mobility of the water molecules were monitored using stimulated echo (STE) and pulsed field gradient (PFG) experiments. The mean flow velocity, averaged over the entire sample, is expected to vanish in closed systems, but the PFG and time dependent signal decay was enhanced beyond the effects of thermal diffusion, due to velocity dispersion. The internal flow generated by the electric field was shown to be fully time-reversible upon inverting the electric field polarity (for total flow times of up to 0.4s), a strong indication that the NMR detected displacements were mainly due to electro-osmotic flow (EOF). However, a comparison of the velocity dispersion for different electrolyte concentrations showed that the measured effect scaled with the applied power VI (V = voltage, I = electric current), rather than with the voltage alone, contrary to the prediction of the basic model for EOF in a single capillary channel.