Facilitated attachment of nanoparticles at primary minima by nanoscale roughness is susceptible to hydrodynamic drag under unfavorable chemical conditions.

This study investigated effects of flow velocity on attachment of nanoparticles at primary minima in the presence of surface roughness under unfavorable chemical conditions. Saturated sand-packed column experiments were conducted at 0.1 and 0.2M NaCl using 30 nm polystyrene latex nanoparticles as model colloids. Particle attachment at primary minima was unambiguously determined by removing particles attached at secondary minima through introducing deionized water and excavating the packed beds. The calculated primary-minimum attachment efficiency was found to decrease with increasing flow velocity, indicating that the fraction of a collector surface that is available for attachment at primary minima decreases with increasing flow velocity. The torque analysis, however, showed that the adhesive torque that the particle experiences at primary minima is much larger than the maximum hydrodynamic drags of a porous medium for the flow velocities used. We attributed the discrepancy to the reason that the sand surface is very rough and the roughness mainly causes the attachment in primary minima under the experimental conditions used in this study. By considering influence of surface roughness in the torque analysis, our calculations show that while particle attachment in primary minima is favored atop of nanoasperities under unfavorable conditions, the adhesive torque that the particle experiences can be greatly reduced and, thus, the attachment is susceptible to flow drag. Whereas the increase of adhesive torque by surface roughness has been widely recognized in the literature, our study indicates that the rough asperities can also decrease adhesive torques for particles attached atop of them.