Modelling structural decay during chemical decontamination of porous media

Modelling structural decay during chemical decontamination of porous media

Mathematics

Ellis J. Speight

2025

Ellen K. Luckins

Once a porous material becomes contaminated with a chemical agent the typical solution is to introduce a cleansing fluid to the surface of the material, allowing the cleanser to react with the agent and creating a less harmful product which neutralises the solution and decontaminates the material. Usually the cleanser and the agent are insoluble, so a flat boundary between the two solutions develops where the decontamination reaction occurs, which moves down through the material over time. We introduce a decay reaction between the cleansing fluid and the porous material to an existing model, and investigate the impact this has on the decontamination process. We shall show for systems with sufficiently large decay that the decontamination efficiency loses its dependence on cleanser strength, meaning that unlike low decay systems there is no drawback to using a weaker cleanser.

Maths, Mathematics Mathematical Modelling, Modelling, Decontamination, Asymptotics, Numerics, PDE