An existence result for a system of coupled semilinear diffusion-reaction equations with flux boundary conditions

Abstract

In this paper, we consider diffusion, reaction and dissolution of mobile and immobile chemical species present in a porous medium. Inflow–outflow boundary conditions are considered at the outer boundary and the reactions amongst the species are assumed to be reversible which yield highly nonlinear reaction rate terms. The dissolution of immobile species takes place on the surfaces of the solid parts. Modelling of these processes leads to a system of coupled semilinear partial differential equations together with a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with multi-valued right-hand sides. We prove the global existence of a unique positive weak solution of this model using a regularization technique, Schaefer's fixed point theorem and Lyapunov type arguments.