Growth of clogs in parallel microchannels

During the transport of colloidal suspensions in microchannels, the deposition of particles can lead to the formation of clogs. Once a clog is formed in a microchannel, advected particles form an aggregate upstream from the site of the blockage. This aggregate called filter cake grows over time, which leads to a dramatic reduction of the flow rate. We present an analytical description that captures the time evolution of the volume of the aggregates. The results are compared with experiments performed using a pressure-driven suspension flow in an array of parallel microchannels. The coupled dynamics of the aggregates is key to bridge clogging at the pore scale with macroscopic observations of the flow rate evolution at the filter scale.