Using hydrodynamic simulations, we study the single polymers flowing through model porous media (close-packed colloidal crystal). In good solvent or high flow rates, the polymer transport is similar to gel electrophoresis, with size-dependent sieving for $L_c/L\lesssim 1$ and size-independent biased reptation for $L_c/L\gtrsim 1$ ($L_c$ is the polymer contour length and $L$ is the diameter of colloids forming the porous media). Importantly, in bad solvent and low flow rates, the polymers show an extra window of size-dependent velocity for $1\lesssim L_c/L\lesssim 2$, where the polymer transport is controlled by a globule-stretch transition at pore throats, and the transport velocity is much slower than reptation.

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• Flows in porous media
• Polymers
• Porous media