Abstract: Disclosed are techniques to mimic turbulent-enhanced reactivity under confinement by the addition of dilute high molecular weight polymers. Micro-scale imaging within a transparent porous medium reveals an elastic instability (EI), which drives chaotic fluctuations that stretch and fold solute blobs exponentially in time analogous to turbulent Batchelor mixing, despite the low Re. A reduction in the required mixing length can be observed, suggesting a cooperation between the elastic instability and the dispersion inherent to the disordered 3D porous media—which can be modeled as additive independent mixing rates, representing a dramatic conceptual simplification. The disclosed enhanced transport of solutes circumvents the traditional trade-off between throughput and reactor length, allowing a simultaneous large reduction in length and increases in throughput.