Zeta potential of porous rocks in contact with mixtures of monovalent and divalent electrolytes

The zeta potential is one of the most important parameters influencing the electrokinetic coupling. Most reservoir rocks are saturated or partially saturated by natural water containing various types of ions (mostly monovalent and divalent ions). Therefore, understanding how the zeta potential behaves for mixtures of electrolytes is very important. In this work, measurements of the zeta potential for four different silica-based samples saturated by seven different mixtures of monovalent and divalent electrolytes are then carried out at a fixed ionic strength. It is seen that the magnitude of the measured zeta potential decreases with increasing divalent cation fraction. The experimental results are then explained by a model developed for mixtures of monovalent and divalent electrolytes. The result shows that the theoretical model is able to reproduce the main trend of the variation of the zeta potential with divalent cation fractions. Additionally, the model can fit the experimental data reported in literature well for reasonable values of the input parameters.     

Morphological Change in the Northern Red River Delta,Vietnam

Coastal erosion has become a worldwide concern, typically in the densely populated Asian mega-river deltas. Severe coastal erosion in the southern Red River Delta(RRD) has been intensively studied. Coastal morphological change in the northern RRD was examined in detail through DEM(Digital Elevation Model) analysis based on time series of bathymetrical maps(1965–2004) and Landsat images(1975–2015) in this study. The results show that the northern RRD is featured by rapid coastal accretion in the past few decades, although suspended sediment flux has dropped by roughly 60% after the completeness of Hoa Binh Dam(HBD) in 1988 and relative sea level rose at 1.9 mm yr~(-1). However, accretion at the outer part of subtidal shoals and platforms was observed to slow down quickly or even turned into erosion in the last two decades. The resuspended sediments from the erosion zone can be transported landward to replenish the inner coastal zone, keeping the latter accretion in the near future to compensate for the sediment discharge decrease from the river. However, this lag effect should be terminated soon if other adverse effects go worse, e.g., damming rivers, sea-level rising, strengthening storms, land reclamation and other poor-designed coastal engineering. Coastal planners and managers should pay full attention to these changes.