Multiphase micro-scale porous flows are important in oil recovery, microdevices, biological flows, and more. In these experiments we designed microfluidic channels with sinusoidal pores as a way to investigate oil recovery and trapping from small scale porous media. The channels are first filled with oil, which strongly wets the solid. Next, water is flowed into the channels to displace the oil, as the two liquids are insoluble with each other. Although the bulk of the oil is displaced and pushed out of the channels, some amount remains trapped within the sinusoidal pores once the water passes by. Our experiments vary both the size and shape of the pores as well as the velocity of the water in order to explore how much oil remains trapped.
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