Study on biofilm´s spatial distribution and effects on permeability in porous media

This article attempts to describe the spatial distribution of biofilm thickness on sand particles in porous media. Through descriptive statistics, it can be inferred that the biofilm thickness variables obey the normal distribution, which will be verified by one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. Two kinds of existing theoretically derived biofilm models were applied to study the impacts on relative permeability (Krel) under different conditions. It indicates that the value of biofilm thickness have a crucial impact on the outcomes of the biofilm models. The error caused by limited knowledge of biofilm distribution is significant. Using arithmetic mean to represent the whole overall level has practical meaning. The outcomes of characteristic thickness, KrelCV, was similar to the mean of outcomes of various biofilm thickness, Krel_mean, which should be taken as priority in application.