This study introduces a novel hybrid approach combining multi-objective optimization and machine learning to optimize an integrated carbon capture and storage (CCS) system. The method simultaneously addresses both reservoir and facility aspects, solving pipe flow and Darcy’s law in porous media based on dynamic nodal analysis. Using CoFlow, an integrated geoenergy system modeling tool...
Shale gas has begun to progressively replace traditional oil and natural gas as a new significant energy source due to the gradual advancement of shale gas exploration and development technology. Exploration and extraction of shale gas depend on the adsorption and free-state characterization of gases in nanoporous shale. Although the majority of current research focuses mostly on the...
Underground storage of hydrogen (H$_2$) fuel and carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) are technologies pursued to mitigate climate change and advance the energy transition. Once injected underground, CO$_2$ and H$_2$ will exist as partially-soluble multiphase fluid-water-rock systems: the injected fluids can flow through the porous rock in a connected plume, become disconnected and trapped as ganglia...
DuMux (https://dumux.org/) is a general simulation framework (written in C++) with a focus on finite volume discretization methods, model coupling for multi-physics applications, and flow and transport applications in porous media. Its core applications are single and multiphase flow applications in porous media on the Darcy scale, embedded network and fracture models, and free-flow porous...
Keywords: Drainage, Imbibition, Capillary trapping, Residual Saturation
Capillary trapping of supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂) in porous media is a key mechanism that enhances the security of geologic carbon storage. However, the pore-scale processes that control trapping efficiency, especially under repeated drainage-imbibition (D-I) cycles, are not yet fully understood. In this study, we...
Solute mixing in porous media is a fundamental process that controls various industrial and environmental processes. Since pore-scale flows are typically steady and laminar, solute mixing was thought to be largely driven by molecular diffusion. However, recent studies have shown that chaotic advection can emerge from 3D flow paths through the porosity [1, 2], strongly enhancing mixing as...
Quantifying uncertainties associated with fault-related leakage is a significant challenge to ensure safe and efficient storage of $CO_2$ in the subsurface. The complexity of this problem arises from structural uncertainties in fault damage zones across various scales, which remain poorly resolved. These uncertainties range from seismically sub-resolved fractures to fine-scale structural and...
Hydrogen has emerged as a promising alternative for sustainable energy and plays a pivotal role in the transition from fossil fuels to green energy. With this growing reliance on hydrogen, the demand for efficient and scalable energy storage solutions has become increasingly critical. Among the various methods available, underground hydrogen storage (UHS) stands out as a cost-effective...
Hydrogen behavior in tight rock formations will define the success of many subsurface operations, including geologic hydrogen production and seasonal storage. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms governing transport within these systems necessitates the application of advanced experimental techniques capable of nanoscale observation under dynamic and high-pressure conditions. In the...
Modeling the process of multiphase flow through porous media is an essential task as it is involved in many mitigation technologies, including CO2 geological storage, hydrogen storage, and fuel cells. To study these multiphase flow processes, scientists can utilize micro-CT scanners with synchrotron sources to image the rock pores in a nanometer-scale spatial resolution while recreating the in...
Hydrogen geologic storage offers significant potential to enhance energy sustainability, but optimizing its storage remains a challenge. Key to addressing this challenge is understanding the thermodynamic processes within mineral nanopores in underground formations. These nanopores present unique opportunities and challenges due to their complex surface chemistry and interactions with...
Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces (TPMS) have been gaining interest in recent years as structured porous medium in numerous engineering applications [1], including compact heat exchangers [2], [3], [4], heat sinks [5] and phase change materials [6]. TPMS are periodic lattices generated by the combination of sine and cosine functions in 3D, the manufacturing of which has been enabled by the...
Polymer fluids, a blend of polymers in water, provide a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable solution for supporting deep underground excavations. Their support mechanism stems from the drag force exerted at the grain scale. However, as non-Newtonian fluids, their full potential in construction applications remains untapped due to limited understanding of their behavior. In this...
Effective underground hydrogen storage in porous rocks requires handling cycles of storage and withdrawal while minimising residual gas saturation, which represents an irrecoverable loss of stored gas and significantly impacts economic feasibility. We will present our recent results on numerical and experimental developments focusing on micromodel systems to investigate these phenomena. The...
RepoTREND (Fig. 1) is a novel simulation tool designed for modeling processes in geological repositories for radioactive waste. It enables the analysis of contaminant release, migration through geological barriers, and radiological impacts on the biosphere. The modular structure of RepoTREND allows for flexible and adaptive modeling of different repository subsystems.
The simulation domain...
Geologic carbon sequestration (GCS) as a greenhouse gas mitigation method is reliant on the long-term retention of carbon dioxide within reservoir storage zones. During the subsurface migration of carbon dioxide in highly homogeneous formations, fluids tend to quickly migrate upwards and accumulate at the top of the storage interval. These accumulations are therefore dependent on the surface...
Reactive transport simulations play a crucial role in advancing our understanding of geochemical subsurface processes, such as modeling geological carbon sequestration and hydrogen storage. These simulations typically employ mass conservation equations to represent chemical reactions and transport phenomena in porous media, which can occur through dispersive/diffusive or advective mechanisms....
Mineral dissolution is a key geologic process that can control many natural processes and human activities. Depending on the interplay between advection, diffusion, and reaction rates, mineral dissolution can produce various dissolution patterns, such as wormholing and uniform dissolution. The resulting changes in pore structure directly influence the flow field, which in turn control solute...
Abstract. Shales are abundant source rocks for natural gas in sedimentary basins, and gas recovery from shales has gained increased attention given the global rise in energy demand. Despite advancements in horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and depressurization to atmospheric conditions, recovery rates for natural gas from shales remain limited to 20-60%. This is primarily due to the...
This study addresses the challenge of modeling tracer dispersion through porous media, applying the Galerkin Physics-Informed Neural Network (Galerkin PINN) approach. The Galerkin PINN method has been systematically evaluated by comparing its results against both analytical solutions and numerical simulations using a Finite Element Method. In this work, experiments were conducted using Berea...
Deep learning (DL) methods are widely used to recognize objects in images. This paper presents a step-by-step workflow to develop a DL-based model for identifying the pores of CT images of core plugs. In this work, some CT images of core plugs are segmented into binary images using threshold method, after post-processing the binary images acting as labels of the original images. The CT images...
Hydrogen has gained interest in recent years as a clean energy source and form of energy storage to support renewables. Porous underground reservoirs (e.g., saline aquifers and depleted gas reservoirs) could accommodate the high volumes of safe, long-term storage that will be needed to support hydrogen economies but remain unproven for underground hydrogen storage (UHS). In particular, cushion...
Our research team is devoted to developing rock property acquisition techniques for CO2 sequestration projects in shallow aquifers. Target reservoir depth of CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) in aquifers can be shallower than the most of E&P project in terms of economic efficiency. It infers that CCS projects have more chance to deal with unconsolidated rocks. Evaluating unconsolidated rocks is...
Quartz-based minerals in earth’s crust are well-known to contain water-related defects within their volume-constrained lattice, and they are responsible for strength-loss [1-3]. Experimental observations of natural α-quartz indicate that such defects appear as hydroxyl groups attached to Si atoms, called Griggs defect (Si-OH), and molecular water (H2O) located at the interstitial sites....
The transition to a low-carbon economy emphasizes innovations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions while enhancing energy and production efficiency. Among the strategies adopted by oil and gas (O&G) companies is carbonated waterflooding, a method of enhanced oil recovery (EOR-CO2) that involves injecting carbonated water into reservoirs. This technique not only improves oil recovery but also...
Gas displacement in porous media is a vital process with broad industrial and environmental applications. A prominent example is underground hydrogen storage, where understanding the interaction and mixing of hydrogen with cushion gas is essential. This study investigates irregularities in the dispersion behaviour of gas mixtures during opposing flow scenarios, specifically injection and...
Reducing atmospheric carbon is essential in the global strategy to combat climate change. The International Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report emphasizes the critical goal of keeping the rise in global temperatures to under 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels. The report highlights that achieving this temperature goal is unlikely without proper deployment of counteractive...
The computational simulation of petroleum reservoirs is crucial for understanding the dynamics of multiphase flow in geological formations, enabling the development of advanced models and accurate predictions. These simulations rely heavily on parametric constitutive relationships to represent fundamental reservoir engineering properties, such as relative permeability ($k_{\text{rel}}$) and...
Heterogeneity in underground porous formations stems from the changes in petrophysical properties, such as porosity and permeability, and it can significantly affect the flow patterns and transport phenomena. Accordingly, there has been a long-standing interest in modeling and characterizing heat propagation in heterogeneous geothermal reservoirs to formulate feasible and economic development...
Understanding how different flow patterns emerge at various macro- and pore scale heterogeneity, pore wettability and surface roughness is remains a long standing scientific challenge. Such understanding allows to predict the amount of trapped fluid left behind, of crucial importance to applications ranging from microfluidics and fuel cells to subsurface storage of carbon and hydrogen. We...
The widespread deployment of wind and solar energy across the United States, along with the increasing use of electrolyzers to convert excess off-peak energy into pure hydrogen from freshwater, offers a promising pathway to reduce the nation’s reliance on carbon-based fossil fuels and facilitate a steady transition to reliable renewable energy sources. Hydrogen is an attractive energy carrier...
We will present our results of an off-lattice Eden model used to simulate the growth of bacterial colonies in the three-dimensional geometry of a Petri dish [1]. In contrast to its two-dimensional counterpart, our model takes a three-dimensional set of possible growth directions and employs additional constraints on growth, which are limited by access to the nutrient layer. We rigorously...
Abstract
Soil pollution by petroleum hydrocarbons a global environmental problem with harmful effects on ecosystems and human health. Remediation is an essential for restoring soil quality and preventing further environmental degradation.
Petroleum hydrocarbons, including crude oil and its derivatives are composed of petroleum hydrocarbons that can remain in the soil for an extended...
Use of antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs) in agriculture is growing as is the recognition of the associated potentially catastrophic threats to human health if such ARGs transfer into pathogenic soil bacteria. Here we summarize previously reported data from our column experiments involving the fate and transport of the ARG nptII in soil from a farm in north-central Oregon, and then detail our...
Early detection and monitoring of induced seismic events resulting from geologic CO2 injection is crucial for ensuring the safety and stability of geologic carbon storage (GCS) operations. At many GCS sites, passive microseismicity detection and analysis is tedious and proper design of autonomous detection systems is labor-intensive. In this study we use multi-head convolutional neural...
Understanding how chemical reactions impact the dissolution rate of rock surfaces over time is critical in subsurface energy activities such as geothermal energy recovery, oil and gas extraction, and carbon storage. Mineral dissolution can increase reservoir permeability as the dissolution can generate permeable pathways, enhancing energy recovery, while other coupled processes such as...
Hydrogen energy is expected to play a significant role in the energy transition with geological storage poised to be one of the few economic options that will enable a large-scale hydrogen economy. Storage in depleted gas fields is an area of active research given the presence of legacy facilities that could be repurposed coupled with the prior knowledge of the reservoir’s characteristics....
Ultra-low permeability shales provide a promising repository for wastes generated from nuclear energy production. Cooling of high-energy wastes, however, thermolyzes embedded organic matter into fluid phases that may lead to local stress concentration and fracturing. Understanding and controlling the fundamental THMC coupling in these heterogeneous nanoconfined environments is therefore...
Plasticity is the study of plastic deformation of materials, which can be quantified using governing and constitutive laws including the conservation of mass, conservation of moment, conservation of energy, and the second law of thermodynamics. A major challenge civil engineers face today is ensuring infrastructure built in coastal environments remains durable, adaptable, and resilient to a...
Understanding porosity in geomaterials is the critical first step to advancing applications like carbon capture and storage, enhanced geothermal systems, and hydrogen storage, where accurate modeling can improve storage efficiency, permeability calculations, and safety. Sandstone, known for its complex and highly porous structure, provides an excellent basis for testing and improving...
The identification of lamination patterns in rock samples is important for understanding petrophysical properties behavior in heterogeneous rocks as laminated structures can influence fluid flow patterns, affecting both routine core analysis (RCAL) and special core analysis (SCAL) measurements [1, 2]. Usually, the identification of these structures rely on subjective human interpretation,...
Biofilm formation in porous media is crucial for understanding microbial processes in subsurface environments, bioremediation, and engineered systems. Previous research has shown that growth may be oxygen-limited under slow flow rates when oxygen is the sole electron acceptor (i.e. under aerobic conditions). Our current research involves growing biofilms in micro-gravity on the International...
The study of fluid-flow and solute transport in natural porous media has applications across diverse geological environments, such as soils for contaminant remediation and rocks for subsurface gas (CO₂ or H₂ storage). Transport processes drive chemical reactions in fluids; however, the inherent disorder of natural porous media introduces heterogeneities in physico-chemical properties across a...
Multiphase flows in the presence of complex solid geometries are omnipresent in porous media processes. Resolving the associated phenomena on a pore level requires the accurate capturing of capillary forces, contact line dynamics and viscous resistance. Frequently, front capturing methods are used to present fluid-fluid interactions, i.e. the Volume of Fluid method (VoF). There, the accuracy...
High-resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (XRCT) is a powerful tool for investigating phase differences in rock samples, such as pores and solids. Despite significant differences in bulk density or porosity between calcite and dolomite, their similar X-ray absorption coefficients lead to comparable gray-scale intensities, making phase differentiation challenging. Overcoming this limitation is...
This research investigates the application of pumice-modified cement systems in improving wellbore integrity for hydrogen storage wells. Laboratory experiments conducted on cement compositions containing 5-25% pumice by weight demonstrated significant improvements in both mechanical properties and gas containment capabilities. The optimal blend (15% pumice) exhibited a 40% reduction in gas...
Biofilms are living, highly dynamic, microbial communities embedded in a matrix of secreted extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). These complex microbial communities have a significant impact on the petrophysical properties of porous media that they colonise (Jin & Sengupta, 2024). This leads to changes in pore geometry, tortuosity, porosity, wettability, capillary pressure and saturation...
Global climate change is a pressing issue that has prompted humankind to reduce the overutilization of fossil fuels to fulfill their energy demands. Accordingly, renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, and geothermal have gained significant attention in recent years, catering to an ever-increasing proportion of the overall energy supply chain. However, the intermittent nature of these...
Mineral precipitation and deposition during reactive flows through porous media are common phenomena in various natural and industrial processes, including biomineralization, marine sedimentation, water treatment, groundwater remediation, concrete carbonation, geothermal energy production, and geologic carbon sequestration. This process typically begins when fluids with different compositions...
Digital rock physics provides a powerful framework for characterizing the physical properties of rock samples using computational methods. In this work, we present a set of numerically efficient solvers developed for stationary diffusion problems, enabling the computation of thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity, and permittivity from micro-CT images of rock samples.
The solvers are...
Subsurface gas storage will involve next to periods of injection and production, periods of no-flow. During these no-flow periods, redistribution of the liquid and gas phases can occur, driven by dissolution and exsolution processes. To better understand this redistribution, we have carried out microfluidic drainage and imbibition experiments, using pre-equilibrated CO2 and water, after which...
Recycling and separating critical minerals (CM) such as manganese (Mn2+), cobalt (Co2+) and nickel (Ni2+) from electronic wastes can help secure the global critical mineral (CM) supply and clean energy production. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a promising material class to effectively sequester CMs from heterogeneous aqueous solutions due to their large surface areas, large pore volumes...
Aquatic sponge tissue is the quintessential living, porous, viscoelastic solid. These animals grow in a myriad of forms, intuitively to maximize flow through their unidirectional water and particulate transport system, or aquiferous system, however the data remain equivocal. Several studies have quantified the dissipative loss from hydraulic transport while ignoring friction from...
Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) are an integral part of the expanding renewable energy portfolio and hold the promise of deploying geothermal energy sources beyond traditional areas. Optimizing injection strategies and the placement of new wells in existing and prospective hydrothermal fields requires a thorough understanding of fluid and temperature distribution in fractured subsurface...
Density-driven segregations in rotating drums, well-studied under dry conditions, reveal diverse symmetrical patterns due to variations in heavy and light grain densities (ρh, ρl,) and rotating speeds (<span>ω</span>). Experimentally, we observe a complete segregation state in submerged systems, absent under dry conditions for the same ρh,...
Groundwater, while abundant, remains highly susceptible to contamination from industrial effluents, improper waste disposal, and excessive agricultural fertilizer use. In recent years, the improper application of nitrogen-based fertilizers has significantly contributed to nitrate contamination in the groundwater systems of eastern coastal India. This study focuses on two vulnerable regions in...
Coal combustion ash (CCA), specifically fly ash, is a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) used in the construction industry to lower the carbon footprint and the cost-efficiency of concrete production. However, the inclusion of CCA introduces challenges to achieving adequate air void (i.e., large pore) structure because of the adsorption of the air entraining admixtures (AEAs) by the...
Geologic gas storage opens exciting horizons for at-scale decarbonization (e.g., CO2 storage, seasonal H2 storage, etc.), but is encumbered by potential for leakage due to fluid-solid reactions (e.g., embrittlement, permeability heterogeneity). The distribution and control of naturally-occurring bacteria that enable mineralization in these formations, a process known as microbially-induced...
The fourth-generation synchrotron facility provides X-rays from low to high energy with a high flux of photons that, coupled with advanced detector technology, allow routine acquisition of high-resolution tomograms in a few seconds. In addition to high-throughput experiments, in this case, computed tomography can also be resolved in time, which is the 4D CT scan. Among the wide range of...
Geological carbon storage is an essential part of climate change mitigation. The Illinois Basin has become an early focal point of geological carbon storage (GCS) research and its implementation in the United States. The principal storage target in the basin is the Mount Simon Sandstone. Known for its exceptional thickness, depth, porosity, and sealing properties of overlying formations, this...
As the global demand to limit the heating of the planet to 1.5 to 2.0 °C by 2050 becomes increasingly urgent, the CO$_2$ mineralization reactions of Portland cement concrete (i.e., carbonation) have emerged as a large-scale CO$_2$ capture and sequestration solution. Portland cement, the primary ingredient in concrete and the second most widely used material after water, has the potential to...
Porous ceramics have diverse applications, including water filtration, heat transfer, catalyst support, and liquid evaporation. They are also essential as water-sealing residential tiles, where understanding water imbibition is crucial for improving tile coating quality. This study focuses on modeling water imbibition using Richards' equation, a complex nonlinear partial differential equation...
Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) is a biologically driven mineralization in geologic media, during which the metabolic activity of microorganisms generates urea and further produces $CO_{3}^{2−}$, forming calcium carbonate precipitation with free $Ca^{2+}$. It serves as an emerging eco-friendly technology in areas such as bioremediation, petroleum extraction, and particularly...
In-situ mineralization provides a promising pathway for permanent carbon storage, but achieving efficient subsurface mineralization requires sufficient permeability in the host rock formation, a significant challenge for scaling up these processes. This work investigates the effects of fracture characteristics (i.e., surface roughness and fracture aperture) on CO2 mineralization reaction by...
We present screening-type models for quantifying the fate and transport of perfluoroalkyl acids and their precursors (PFAS) in a heterogeneous vadose zone. The models represent the heterogeneous vadose zone by one-dimensional dual-porosity, dual-permeability, or tripe-porosity domains. They account for transport mechanisms specific to PFAS and their precursors---including multi-site...
Water reclamation and reuse has become a popular practice in arid to semi-arid regions, especially in the western United States. Conventional wastewater treatment methods often fall short of completely removing viruses, causing the introduction of myriad of viruses in the water environment with potential for hazardous impact on human health. Current fecal contamination indicators including...
Swimming bacteria can adapt their swimming in the face of environmental cues and stresses. In response to nutrient gradients, bacteria lower their tumbling frequency when going up the gradients, leading to a net drift toward the nutrient source. In the presence of flows and in crowded environments, however, bacterial swimming patterns change. They get trapped near surfaces due to flow shear,...
During drilling, the instability of the wellbore is always a severe problem, which might lead to borehole failure in shale formation. But this kind of borehole failure could be eased using the optimum mud weight and the better well trajectory. Many drilling problems include the kick or blowout, wellbore collapse, or lost circulation. This study applied a geo-mechanical model and rock failure...
Dual-energy computed tomography (DECT), a non-destructive characterization method of geological samples, has been used for estimating the effective atomic number ($Z_{eff}$), and the density (ρ) of the components of a sample. These estimates require calibration using three materials with known intensities as well as air – typically surrounding the sample – within the scan range, resulting in...
Filamentous fungi play critical roles in nutrient and carbon cycling1, bioremediation2, biofouling of engineered materials3, and infection of immunocompromised individuals4,5. While these processes often involve porous media flows, we have limited knowledge on fungi-fluid interactions in pore spaces. This knowledge gap restricts our capacity to control and harness fungal activity for...
Discrete fracture networks (DFNs) offer high-fidelity simulations of flow and transport in fractured media, but the complex networks they represent are often computationally prohibitive at field scales. Identification of network backbones, relatively small subgraphs that capture major network processes, can significantly reduce computations and expose important topological structures. We...
SCAL (Special Core Analysis) tests are essential for determining the prop-
erties of heterogeneous porous media under multiphase internal flow, including
capillary pressure, relative permeability, and wettability. These tests are pivotal
for predicting reservoir performance. Among them, the USS (Unsteady-State)
core flooding test is particularly noteworthy. In this test, an oil-saturated...
As global warming intensifies, CO₂ sequestration has been recognized as one of the most feasible strategies for reducing CO₂ emissions. Within CO₂ sequestration approaches, the CO₂ mineralization process, a promising CO₂ sequestration method, consists of four main steps: (1) injection of CO₂-saturated water into basalt formations, (2) dissolution of mafic minerals within the porous media, (3)...
The increasing global demand for safe drinking water emphasizes the importance of energy-efficient and sustainable treatment technologies such as slow sand filtration (SSF). Central to SSF's efficacy is the bioactive layer, or Schmutzdecke (SD), which facilitates particle removal through biological and physical processes. This study bridges microscale insights into biofilm dynamics with...
Miscible multiphase flow in porous media involves displacing a resident fluid by another fluid of different viscosity and density. This process arises in various applications, such as groundwater remediation, hydrogen storage, moisture and solute transport, and geological carbon sequestration, where mixing leads to an intermediate fluid phase distinct from the original phases, thus changing...
Perfluoroalkyl and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), as constituents of many industrial products, pose significant risks to groundwater quality and ecosystem health due to their persistence in the environment and their association with various health issues. Permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) can offer a cost-effective and energy-efficient in situ solution for PFAS groundwater plume...
Geothermal energy plays an important role in the transition towards renewable and carbon-neutral energy resources. For some geothermal fields enhancing water-rock heat exchange is required by either fracking or by blocking large conduits. Here we test a novel approach for blocking large fractures using heat sensitive epoxy resin foam droplets that can be advected to target regions of the...
Meeting ambitious carbon neutrality goals set by governments worldwide requires a multifaceted approach. One area of focus is the utilization of subsurface energy resources, particularly in shale formations located thousands of feet underground. Although this reservoir was an important contributor to the natural gas boom of the 2000s, it has increasingly been explored for other, more...
Expansive soils are widely known for their high shrink-swell behavior, which can lead to substantial structural damage and maintenance challenges in civil infrastructure. Traditional stabilization methods often face limitations in achieving uniform treatment and long-term effectiveness. In recent years, nanoparticles have emerged as a promising alternative for soil stabilization due to their...
Equilibrium and kinetic behavior of adsorption-induced deformation attracted much attention in the last decades [1,2]. This phenomenon is ubiquitous but challenging to predict quantitatively due to numerous factors (pore size and geometry, adsorbent/adsorbate combination, temperature, etc.) affecting its manifestation. Time may be considered as one of these factors as many industrial and...
The fundamental importance of CO2 trapping mechanisms during geological storage in deep saline aquifers (DSA) remains indisputable and requires adequate means for adequate description and successful application. During last decades tremendous efforts have been made in many research areas to provide experimental, theoretical, simulation and pilot tests data at diverse conditions and multiple...
Water damage to gas permeability significantly impacts hydrocarbon recovery in gas reservoirs by altering the flow dynamics of gas and water phases within porous media. Addressing this challenge requires a deep understanding of fluid flow and distribution in porous structures to optimize hydrocarbon recovery strategies. Traditional bundle-of-tubes models often assume simplified circular pore...
Digital rock physics (DRP) is an emerging technique that integrates advanced imaging and computational modeling to characterize rock microstructures. The flow transport properties such as absolute permeability, velocity, and relative permeability can be quantified using numerical simulations based on high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) digital rock models. However, the acquisition and...
Coupled mineral dissolution and precipitation processes with gas production are critical processes in energy subsurface systems, e.g., generating hydrogen gas during the anoxic corrosion of metallic nuclear waste canisters, during natural hydrogen degassing from serpentinized mafic rocks, and CO$_{2}$ sequestration in deep saline aquifers. However, the fate of exsolved gas within porous media...
We study a quasi-2D oil-in-water emulsion flowing through a microfluidic porous material, stabilized into droplets by a weak surfactant. The porous material creates droplet breakup against static obstacles, and the weak surfactant does not completely inhibit coalescence. Therefore, the droplets arrive at a steady-state size distribution, which is a function of the system geometry, flow speeds,...
Flow and transport in fractured media are governed by complex interactions between geological heterogeneity and fluid properties. In subsurface systems, fluids with different densities often coexist, leading to density-driven flow that can impact flow and transport. Additionally, in fractured systems where high flow velocities are common, fluid inertia can further influence transport dynamics...
The Gulong shale oil resources in the Songliao Basin are abundant, predominantly concentrated in the Qingshankou and Nenjiang Formations. Immature to low-maturity shale is widely distributed, particularly in the first and second members, with a maturity level (Ro) generally below 0.75%. In-situ transformation methods can convert the organic matter within immature and low-maturity shale into...
TCE (trichloroethylene), PFAS, and other chlorinated solvents are common contaminants at hazardous waste sites, both in the United States and globally. These compounds pose significant risks to human health due to their toxicity and persistence in the environment. TCE enters the subsurface from industrial operations such as aircraft cleaning, metal degreasing, and improper disposal of...
Contamination of soils and aquifers by light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) poses significant risks to environmental sustainability and public health. Conventional in-situ LNAPL remediation techniques often encounter high costs and limited efficiency challenges, leaving residual hydrocarbons trapped within soil pores. As an alternative, unconventional in-situ flushing using complex...
The latter developments in printing industry showed that the inkjet technology delivers good print quality using the flexibility of digital printing at a breakthrough cost price. At Canon Production Printing company, we consider the inkjet technology as the flagship of our successful R&D printer design and production.
The study of ink penetration in thin porous media (paper) is a...
Immiscible multi-phase flow within porous structures plays a crucial role in a variety of natural and industrial processes and is governed by several forces such as viscous, capillary, and buoyancy forces and pore geometry. Understanding the interplay of these factors is critical in controlling the behaviour of fluid-fluid interfaces in multi-phase flow in porous media. This interplay...
Freeze-thaw cycles are ubiquitous in cold climates and can affect groundwater recharge and solute transport through the porous subsurface. These cycles create freezing and melting fronts that propagate centimeters to meters into the vadose zone. Within the vadose zone, these fronts cause spatial and temporal variations in pressure and temperature that impact flow and transport. These coupled...
In situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) has become a widely used remediation technique for contaminated areas due to its proven effectiveness. The use of potassium permanganate (KMnO4) to degrade trichloroethylene (TCE, C4HCl3) has demonstrated favorable results in both pilot- and field-scale studies. However, a key challenge in optimizing the process lies in the limited understanding of reactions...
Conducting coreflooding experiments with high-resolution imaging has become a key approach for understanding the physical phenomena governing CO2 storage in underground porous geological formations. These experiments focus on displacement and trapping mechanisms of immiscible phases, which are predominantly capillary-dominated. A significant advantage of pore-scale imaging lies in its ability...
Mineral dissolution is a key process of subsurface systems and engineering applications, such as karst formation and engineered carbon mineralization. Fluid flows have been shown to significantly affect mineral dissolution rates by controlling concentration fields [1-2], highlighting the importance of understanding flow-dissolution dynamics. In subsurface porous and fractured media, inertial...
In a 2014 report, the DOE recognized the paper industry as the third largest consumer of energy in the United States, accounting for 13% of the manufacturing energy consumption used nationally. Because water is predominantly the carrier fluid during paper manufacture, evaporative drying at the end of the manufacturing process can account for 2/3 of paper making energy consumption. Accordingly,...
Salt Crystallization in Porous Media is a critical phenomenon found in various natural processes and applications, such as the degradation of built structures, gas recovery and storage, and underground CO₂ storage. This phenomenon impacts the petrophysical properties of rocks, particularly porosity and permeability, fundamental parameters in the description of fluid flow in porous media. The...
Sub-microgels, crosslinked polymer particles, have attracted increasing interest in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS), carbon storage, and groundwater management field. However, it is still unclear how to properly utilize these elastic particles underground because the transport and retention are not well studied so far, especially in oil fields. This study...
Geological carbon sequestration, the capture and underground storage of CO2, is widely considered the primary approach to offset CO2 emissions from large-scale fossil fuel consumption. A key requirement for any potential storage site is the presence of an effective caprock. The caprock's sealing capacity, or its ability to prevent CO2 escape, is critical in any proposed storage project [1]....
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are consistently detected in wastewater treatment plant effluent and urban stormwater runoff at concentrations that exceed federal health advisory levels. Soils and sediments in adjacent wetlands and floodplains may accumulate PFAS due to periodic ponding events. However, our understanding of PFAS transport and partitioning mechanisms in these areas...
Discriminating nuclear weapons testing programs from civilian sources is difficult due to highly variable atmospheric radioxenon backgrounds. We aim to study the transport of byproduct gases produced by subsurface explosions, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2), as novel signatures for proliferation monitoring. To demonstrate how ratios of gases produced by explosions can change...
Complex interactions between geological heterogeneity and fluid properties govern flow and transport in fractured media. These dynamics are critical for applications such as contaminant remediation, enhanced geothermal systems, and geologic carbon sequestration, where density-driven flow can impact transport. Under these conditions, fracture network characteristics significantly control flow...
Sand and dust storms (SDS) and emissions are extreme weather events that can silently cross borders and impact millions globally. The SDS can pose threats to environmental and human health across all continents. These storms arise from complex interactions between atmospheric and land factors, with soil properties playing a pivotal role in their formation, intensity and consequence impacts....
Wellbore cement serves as a critical barrier to prevent the migration of CO2 through the wellbore and to the surface in CO2 geological storage sites. However, the cement may exhibit chemical instability under CO2-rich conditions. This research examines the changes in the pore structure of reaction zones within wellbore cement samples that have been subjected to a CO2-rich solution equilibrated...
