Adsorption–desorption reactions at fluid–solid interfaces underpin a wide spectrum of natural and engineered processes taking place in porous media, including contaminant remediation, solute retention in soils, and sequestration of geogenic and anthropogenic heavy metals. However, accurately predicting these reactive processes remains an open challenge. Current continuum-scale models are...
Effective thermal conductivity (ETC) is a key parameter governing heat transfer in multiphase porous materials. This study presents a computational framework based on the space renormalisation technique to estimate ETC from segmented X-ray micro-CT images of porous media. By explicitly accounting for pore-scale heterogeneity, the method enables detailed spatiotemporal evaluation of ETC across...
This study presents a novel strategy to enhance CO₂ uptake in cement systems by incorporating 1,6-hexamethylenediamine (HMDA) as a water-soluble additive. Conventional CO₂ curing approaches are constrained by the low solubility of CO₂ in cement pore solutions and the associated reduction in alkalinity, which can hinder cement hydration. To overcome these limitations, HMDA was introduced into...
Recently a novel method has been developed to determine relative permeability for gas-liquid systems e.g. for the underground storage of hydrogen from a hybrid experimental/modelling workflow. It follows the philosophy of measuring time sequences of pore scale fluid distributions by in-situ micro-CT imaging for gas-liquid systems which due to their rich physics (immiscible displacement...
High-resolution X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) enables pore-scale characterization of rocks, but extracting representative volumes at high resolution is often computationally prohibitive for routine digital rock workflows. In contrast, lower-resolution scans cover larger domains but systematically miss sub-voxel throats and fine-scale connectivity, leading to biased pore-network...
Water reinjection is a widely employed practice in hydrocarbon reservoirs to maintain pressure and enhance recovery efficiency. However, one of the major operational challenges is the loss of injectivity caused by particle accumulation in the near-wellbore region. At the pore scale, this phenomenon has been attributed to mechanisms such as particle bridging, successive deposition, and...
Wheat straw is more and more used as insulation and semi-structural material for construction. One classical building method consists in filling a wooden structural frame with compressed straw bales. The crucial issue in such bio-based frames is water. Indeed water condensation in the liquid state would result in rapid rotting and degradation of the insulation. Thus controlling heat and...
Carbonate reservoir performance depends not only on total porosity, but on how pore-space connectivity controls transport. In backscatter SEM (BSE–SEM) images, connected pathways and isolated intragranular pores can have similar greyscale appearance, yet they imply very different behaviour: connected pores support flow, whereas isolated pores mainly contribute to storage and trapping. Standard...
Previous studies on convective dissolution have investigated the rate at which free CO2 saturates an underlying brine layer through convective mixing. Recently, Mingotti and Woods (2025) conducted a laboratory experiment using saturated brine with dispersed salt powder overlying a freshwater layer. The latter configuration is analogous to the dissolution of residually-trapped CO2 in water. To...
A fundamental understanding of particle transport through porous media is essential for biomedical, environmental, and technological applications. Although the detailed shapes of transported particles and the surrounding pore space strongly influence transport properties, they are often neglected in theoretical and numerical studies. Here, we investigate the transport of rod-like charged...
Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) and geological CO2 sequestration are two important technologies supporting the global energy transition. While each has been widely studied independently, their integration—specifically, the use of stored CO2 as a cushion gas for hydrogen storage—offers both economic and environmental advantages. Using CO2 as the cushion gas can reduce operating costs, make...
Forced evaporation of water from porous substrates is one of the oldest techniques humans have actively used for their own purposes with historical records reaching back more than 14000 years [1]. By now drying is ubiquitous in our daily lives for which we spend significant amount of our energy budget, be it for food preservation, inkjet printing, carbon capture and storage or polymer...
Coal fine intrusion into hydraulic propped fractures of coal seam easily leads to the blockage of the fracture, resulting in the decrease of the conductivity and the reduction of coal reservoir permeability. It causes the well shutdown and well repair work in serious situations, which seriously affects the stable discharge and production of coalbed methane well. Previous studies have uniformly...
Cellulose is a typical hygroscopic material of major importance in nature and industry. As vapor is absorbed in the amorphous matrix of cellulose, the material swells which gives rise to unusual coupled behaviors between the fluid and the porous solid. In this work, we investigate by NMR/MRI how the drying and wetting behavior of cellulose fiber stacks depends on its degree of compression, and...
Elucidating the dynamic displacement behavior and enhanced oil recovery mechanisms of CO₂ miscible flooding in low-permeability reservoirs is crucial for optimizing sweep efficiency and maximizing ultimate oil recovery. In this study, online nuclear magnetic resonance was integrated with core-flooding experiments on a low-permeability core sample from Jilin, China. In addition to conventional...
Active-distributed temperature sensing (DTS) thermal test uses resistive heat as a thermal tracer source to measure Darcy fluxes in the subsurface, with high spatiotemporal resolution. However, most applications neglect the influence of thermal dispersion and small-scale hydraulic heterogeneity, which can influence heat transport in a porous medium surrounding the fiber optic cable,...
The rising demand for sustainable energy storage has positioned Underground Hydrogen Storage (UHS) as a potential solution for the large-scale management of highly variable renewable energy production. This technology offers the vast storage capacities required to transition toward a carbon-neutral energy infrastructure and to fulfill the European Union’s ambitious net-zero greenhouse gas...
Timber has been widely adopted since humans started constructing buildings and sees increasing interest as effective carbon sink compared to conventional building materials like steel and concrete. An organic material, wood is prone to moisture-induced biodegradation over sustained wet periods while swelling/shrinkage deformation can occur in a matter of minutes. Water loads on buildings are...
In an ongoing laboratory study, we systematically investigate the influence of two-fluid properties and pore-network characteristics—such as geometry and wettability—on two-phase flow in porous media. The primary objective is to assess and quantify end effects arising from the finite length and geometry of model pore networks under varying flow conditions. To this end, steady-state...
Tight sandstone reservoirs, representing a substantial fraction of global unconventional hydrocarbon resources, are characterized by complex pore structures and high heterogeneity, which pose significant challenges to resource evaluation and efficient development. Water saturation (Sw) serves as a critical physical parameter for revealing the evolution laws of multiphase fluids in porous...
Karst aquifers are characterized by highly heterogeneous conduit networks that control groundwater flow. Explicit simulation of flow in large karst networks, often composed of tens of thousands of conduits, remains computationally challenging due to their size and topological complexity.
In this work, we propose a graph-based framework for the upscaling of karst conduit networks, where...
Hydrogen is increasingly considered a key energy carrier for the transition to sustainable energy systems. However, large-scale transport and storage remain major technical challenges. For seasonal energy storage, underground solutions such as salt caverns or saline aquifers are viable, while for daily intermittency, above-ground cryogenic tanks are required. The storage volumes needed for...
The simultaneous increase in electronic device integration density and thermal design power (TDP) in recent years has created significant challenges for thermal management. This has made flat and even ultra-thin passive phase-change heat transfer devices suitable for confined spaces a major research focus in this field. Representative ultra-thin vapor chambers and flat heat pipes now have...
The exploration of the North Alpine Foreland Basin (NAFB) for geothermal heat and power production is a cornerstone of the energy transition in Bavaria. So far more than 25 facilities are exploring the Upper Jurassic reservoir in a doublet or multilateral setting. To increase productivity the operators are interested in a higher thermal spread by reducing temperature of the injected...
In recent years, the pre-salt reservoirs have gained visibility due to their large hydrocarbon reserves, currently representing the main source of Brazil’s oil production. These reservoirs are predominantly composed of carbonate rocks, which are highly heterogeneous and exhibit a wide range of pore types and pore sizes. Such complexity makes the estimation of petrophysical properties...
Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) in tight conglomerate reservoirs is a pivotal strategy for carbon neutrality. However, geochemical interactions under high-temperature and high-pressure (HTHP) conditions remain poorly understood. This study investigates the petrophysical and geo-mechanical evolution of Mahu Sag tight conglomerates through static soaking experiments (30 MPa, 80...
Multiphase frictional flows, involving the transport of solid grains by fluids in confined environments, are common in both natural and industrial contexts such as mudflows, volcanic intrusions, and soil remediation. Despite their prevalence and significant environmental and economic impact, these systems are still not well understood.
These flows typically involve three phases: two mobile...
Understanding how molecular interactions govern fluid transport in mesoporous materials is essential for applications ranging from catalysis to energy harvesting and oil recovery. In nanoscale pores, interactions between fluid molecules and between fluid and pore walls can strongly influence imbibition dynamics, yet remain challenging to quantify experimentally.
We address this question by...
Nitrate contamination currently represents one of the most persistent and challenging forms of groundwater pollution in world. This insidious problem affects virtually all aquifers in the state of São Paulo (Brazil), which are responsible for the total or partial water supply of approximately 80% of the municipalities. In this context, the Bauru Aquifer System (BAS) stands out as the main and...
Deep, unminable coal seams are promising targets for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). When supercritical CO2 (ScCO2) is injected in the presence of water, coupled physicochemical interactions and thermal effects can simultaneously modify coal microstructure and subsequently alter CO2 transport. Although ScCO2-induced structural changes and pressure effects have been widely...
Mixing describe the process of homogenisation of solute concentration fields by the coupled action of fluid advection and diffusive processes. In flows through porous media, it is of key importance in a range of fluid-fluid and fluid-solid reactive transport processes, notably in the subsurface. At the pore scale, laminar flow through the porosity produces exponentially growing fluid...
Fractured rock masses consist of both matrix and fractures, with the latter often serving as the primary pathways for unsaturated fluid flow. Fracture apertures are highly sensitive to mechanical loading, while unsaturated flow modifies effective stress through matric suction and saturation-dependent capillary forces, resulting in strongly coupled hydro-mechanical behavior. Variations in...
The performance and operation of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) strongly depend on two key aspects: electrochemical reactions, and fluid dynamics within the cell. This research focuses on the latter, which is governed by the coupled hydrodynamics of the flow-field channels and the porous electrodes. Accurately capturing this coupling represents a long-standing challenge in fluid...
We present an original numerical method to simulate multiscale fluid flows. The approach is oriented on simulation flows in CT-scans-based models with resolved and unresolved porosity. Fluid flow is simulated using the Navier-Stokes-Brinkmann equation. The Cahn-Hilliard equation describes the phase transport at in resolved pores, whereas filtration transport with capillary pressure is...
The accurate prediction of multiphase flow in porous media underlies key subsurface energy applications such as geological carbon sequestration (GCS) and underground hydrogen storage (UHS). Ostwald ripening — the diffusion-driven dissolution of small gas ganglia and redeposition onto larger ones - strongly modifies phase connectivity, yet classical models are limited to unconfined, equilibrium...
We present a Volume-of-Solid (VoS) framework as an alternative methodology for modelling elastic deformation at the pore scale in complex porous geometries. The approach is designed for voxel-based simulations and enables elastic stress computation on simple, non-conforming meshes while accounting for fluid–solid interfaces in a consistent manner. Such a framework is particularly relevant for...
Unsaturated gas flowing in brine-filled formations often triggers salt precipitation and permeability impairment due to brine evaporation, a phenomenon first observed in natural gas production wells [1] and recently increasingly relevant for CO2 storage in saline aquifers [2-4]. Laboratory and modeling studies have substantially advanced the understanding of salt precipitation dynamics,...
Cavitation is the formation of a vapor bubble in a metastable liquid. It occurs in numerous situations, ranging from engineering (ultrasonic cleaning, cavitation erosion) to the natural sciences (embolism in trees). Bulk cavitation is qualitatively well described by the Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT), provided that the dependence of surface tension on curvature is taken into account [1,2]....
Successful exploitation of tight sandstone gas is one of the important means to ensure the “increasing reserves and production” of
the oil and gas initiative and also one of the important ways to ensure national energy security. To further improve the accuracy of
historical matching of field data such as gas production and bottom-hole pressure during the production process of this type of...
Spectral induced polarization (SIP) exhibits unique sensitivity to pore-scale reactive processes. Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation, a critical reaction in carbon sequestration, soil stabilization, and environmental remediation, generates distinct SIP signals. In this study, a pore-realistic SIP simulation approach coupled with microfluidic experiments was employed to unravel the...
Urban stormwater management has become a major issue for local authorities facing the risk of flooding and pollution of receiving environments. Indeed, expansive urbanization leads to surface sealing and, consequently, water flows concentration and contaminants loads deposited on impervious surfaces. Rainwater management drainage systems play a dual role in reducing the volume of water...
ABSTRACT: Terrestrial heat flow is a critical parameter that reveals the present-day thermal regime of sedimentary basins and plays a vital role in evaluating geothermal and petroleum resource potential. In this study, we present the most comprehensive update of heat flow measurements based on borehole measurements and thermophysical properties in the Sichuan Basin to date. The geothermal...
The efficacy of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) within deep saline aquifers depends on the physicochemical interplay between supercritical CO2 (scCO2), formation brine, and the host rock. As scCO2 dissolves, the consequent acidification induces mineral dissolution, which fundamentally modifies pore architecture and hydraulic pathways. Although the impact of dissolution on absolute...
The effect of stratigraphic temperature on the fracture damage process of shale using the digital core technology
Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas resource that has received sustained interest due to its substantial reserves and broad value for integrated utilization. With the continued advancement of horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing in horizontal wells,...
We will build upon two recently developed methods of non-Newtonian porosimetry: Based on the capillary-bundle idealization of porous medium (an oversimplification, which can hopefully be relaxed later), the yield-stress method (YSM) and the so-called ANA method determine the functional pore size distribution (fPSD) of porous medium using a set of saturated flow experiments with non-Newtonian...
Up scaling of Darcean flows in heterogeneous porous media is a well mastered issue that led to numerous theoretical and numerical developments using homogenization or volume averaging theory, and stochastic averaging using statistical physics methods.
On the other hand, up-scaling of flows in discrete networks are well mastered mainly in the percolation theory framework, and within the...
The flow within porous microtubes is a key issue in many industrial contexts, particularly for hollow fiber membranes often made of organic materials (such as cellulose) with amphiphilic properties. While flow in microtubes with impermeable walls has been extensively studied, little attention has been given to the case of porous walls. Our recent work focused on wettability effects by...
Water transport in wood plays a central role in many industrial processes, yet the mechanisms governing imbibition still remain difficult to characterise (and thus to understand) due to the anisotropic and multiscale structure of wood and to the intricate coexistence of bound and free water during imbimtion. In this work, water imbibition in European beech (Fagus sylvatica) is investigated...
As a viable solution to climate change, carbon capture and storage (CCS) plays a crucial role in achieving net-zero emissions. Injecting CO2 into deep geological formations leads to fluid pressure buildup and CO2 plume migration, which may induce seismic events or contaminate groundwater resources. These hazards necessitate risk assessment and storage prospect evaluations, which rely heavily...
The intricate nature of subsurface carbon mineralization reactive transport processes has driven researchers to employ artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for analyzing extensive experimental and monitoring and simulation-based data collections. The research assesses present AI-based investigation methods which use data-driven approaches to study carbon mineralization and...
This study investigates the complex phenomenon of buoyancy-driven leakage through a high-permeability channel (HPC) in a porous medium. In nature, such buoyancy-driven flows may be observed in several contexts, including underground hydrogen storage, CO$_2$ sequestration, and water infiltration in soil. For our study, we used a transparent acrylic rectangular tank for performing the...
Gas compressibility induces a nonlinear relationship between the boundary forcing — imposed pressure, volumetric flux and mass flux — and pressure evolution in porous media, producing qualitatively distinct relaxation paths of the pressure field toward its steady state under the different forcings. This behavior is increasingly relevant in gas reservoir operations, particularly with the...
Clay is a challenging material in dredging due to its complex soil properties, high plasticity, and stickiness. It sticks to the equipment (Winkelman, 2025b) and forms clay balls in the pipeline (Boor,2004). Which leads to unpredictable production rates and increased downtime (PIANC,2016). With the growing demand for construction materials in infrastructure, clay can be an alternative for...
The understanding and, in fine, control of the transport properties of charged polymers, i.e. polyelectrolytes (PEs), inside nanoporous media is important to design new devices for nanofluidic or for biological applications such as sequencing of DNA strands or designing pores for biosensors, filtration or chemical separation. In particular, the geometrical constraints imposed by the nanoporous...
When conditioning radioactive waste, enhancing the sorption properties of binders is essential. This can be accomplished through the use of various additives, such as artificial silicates. However, these additives can significantly affect the mineral composition of the cement and, consequently, alter its pore structure, including the size and distribution of the pores.
The aim of this work...
As a significant component of unconventional oil and gas resources, fractured-vuggy reservoirs are characterized by the complex connectivity between fractures and cavities, as well as strong heterogeneity. These factors lead to elusive flow patterns and intricate mechanisms of residual oil formation during reservoir development. Using custom-designed artificial fractured-vuggy cores, this...
Soil contamination by refined petroleum hydrocarbons remains a significant environmental problem due to these compounds' toxicity, persistence, and mobility. Bioremediation has emerged as an environmentally friendly and cost-effective approach that uses microorganisms to degrade hydrocarbons into less harmful substances [1]. However, its overall performance is often limited by nonuniform...
Accurate characterization of subsurface properties such as porosity and permeability is a central challenge in modeling flow and transport in porous media. These parameters play a decisive role in predicting plume migration and long-term storage security in applications such as CO$_2$ sequestration, groundwater hydrology, and subsurface energy systems. However, direct measurement of these...
Foams stabilised by additives are increasingly employed in subsurface applications, including geological carbon sequestration and enhanced oil recovery, to improve gas flow control in porous media. The stability of foam is governed by multiple coupled processes, including liquid drainage, bubble coarsening and coalescence, which are strongly influenced by fluid rheology. Non-Newtonian fluids...
Updated abstract: Fracture intersections are critical links that enable flow and transport in subsurface fracture networks, and their behavior strongly influences fluid mixing in a network. Although all subsurface fractures are subjected to geological stress, we lack a fundamental understanding of how fracture intersection geometry evolves under stress and how these changes influence fluid...
〖Gideon Osei Faaho〗^1,〖Alex Reinhart〗^2,〖Mehrdad Razahvi〗^1,〖Nicole Hurtig〗^2,〖Jason Simmons〗^3,
〖Laura Waters〗^2,〖Sai Wang〗^3
(1) Mineral Engineering Department, New Mexico Tech, USA.
(2) Earth and Environmental Science Department, New Mexico Tech, USA.
(3) Petroleum Recovery Research Center, New Mexico Tech, USA.
Email: gideonoseifaaho@gmail.com
Abstract
Mineral carbonation is a...
Fluids confined in nanoporous media exhibit dynamical and thermodynamic properties that can differ markedly from their bulk counterparts due to restricted geometry, interfacial effects, and modified intermolecular interactions. Aqueous electrolyte solutions represent a particularly rich class of confined fluids, where ion hydration and ion–water coupling introduce additional complexity. In...
We present a novel workflow for solving flow problems on multi-billion-voxel images using Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) and High-Performance Computing (HPC). DNS is a powerful tool for investigating flow and transport in porous materials, but its application is typically limited by memory constraints, with images of approximately 500^3voxels often regarded as the practical upper limit. We...
To address escalating water shortages and the necessity for resilient urban infrastructure, this research explores a novel hybrid green roof system designed for decentralized circular water management. The system, experimentally tested by Petreje et al. (2023), combines a rooftop constructed wetland with a semi-intensive two-layer green roof, functioning as a nature-based solution for the...
Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) executes hydrogen injection into/retraction from subsurface porous reservoirs aiming to stabilize renewable energy. Topological continuity of gas governs its mobility in porous media and thus affects UHS efficiency. Gas continuity exhibits hysteresis effect over injection-retraction cycles, and factors affecting hysteresis, such as porous geometry, flow rate...
Acid stimulation is a widely employed technique in the oil and gas industry to enhance the permeability of carbonate reservoirs by creating preferential flow channels, known as wormholes. These highly efficient flow pathways are crucial for improving fluid transport in porous media, enabling the bypass of damaged zones near the wellbore. Understanding wormhole formation, structure, and...
Foam is a dispersion of gas bubbles within a liquid medium, separated by thin liquid films called lamellae. In petroleum engineering, foams are of particular interest because they restrict gas mobility and redirect fluid flow, making them valuable for enhanced oil recovery and carbon dioxide storage. By blocking preferential flow paths, foam can improve efficiency, yet its stability in porous...
May the H₂ Forces Be with You: Dimensionless Force Balance and Recovery Efficiency in Subsurface Hydrogen Storage
Objectives/Scope:
This paper aims to evaluate the dynamic interplay of capillary, viscous, and gravitational forces in hydrogen (H₂) geological storage and how these differ from other injected gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄). It focuses on identifying...
Fiber-reinforced cementitious composites such as Geosynthetic Cementitious Composite Mats (GCCMs) are increasingly used in cold-region infrastructure, yet their durability under repeated freeze–thaw cycles (FTCs) is still uncertain at the microstructural scale. This limits confidence in long term performance as freeze–thaw variability increases in many regions.
We studied a polyester fiber...
A clear understanding of the physical mechanisms underlying sorption-induced deformation in porous materials is essential for predicting the mechanical response of solid matrices encountered in civil engineering and energy geotechnics. To describe the drying shrinkage of partially saturated porous materials with broad pore size distributions, we extend the poromechanical model proposed by El...
Long-term safety assessments of radioactive waste repositories in rock salt require the modelling of coupled hydraulic and mechanical processes over geological time scales. One of the key processes is rock convergence – the progressive closure of excavated voids due to the creep of the surrounding salt formation. In voids that have been filled with crushed salt, rock convergence is strongly...
Water-based inkjet inks typically contain non-volatile, polar compounds – referred to as co-solvents – such as glycerol and ethylene glycol oligomers, which constitute approximately 5-50 wt% of the total ink. The hygroscopic nature of both paper and co-solvents makes their interplay with atmospheric moisture a critical factor in controlling the ink penetration and drying dynamics of ink, as...
Hydrogen transport and storage in water-filled porous media play a critical role in emerging energy technologies, including subsurface hydrogen storage, membrane-based separation, and green housing applications involving hydrogen-enabled energy systems. At the pore scale, accurate prediction of hydrogen solubility and partitioning between aqueous and gaseous phases remains challenging due to...
Biomass-derived Activated Carbons (AC) are highly porous materials dominated by micropores, providing large adsorption surface areas and strong selectivity. Such materials are widely used in gas separation and have high potential for environmental and energy applications including CO₂ capture. These applications have made gas adsorption processes on porous carbon materials highly attractive...
The steel industry is responsible for about 10% of the worlds CO2 emissions. As steel remains indispensable in our current and future society, the steel industry needs to make a rapid shift towards green steel production. Iron is the core ingredient of steel, and most of it is made by iron-making blast furnaces. The green steel production route will use a Direct Reduction Plant (DRP) in which...
Fracture in porous geomaterials such as clay is governed by highly complex mechanisms involving crack initiation, branching, coalescence, and interaction over multiple length scales. In cemented or lithified clayey materials, these processes are strongly influenced by porosity, cementation level, and the associated transition from ductile to brittle behaviour. Accurately capturing such...
Porous and fractured media are central to a broad range of subsurface energy and environmental applications, including carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), subsurface carbon mineralization, geothermal energy production, hydrogen energy storage, remediation of contaminated soils and aquifers, and unconventional oil and gas recovery. The research provides a detailed analysis of...
This study addresses the challenge of modeling multiphase flow in complex, multiscale carbonate rocks. Conventional pore network models often assume unresolved (sub-resolution) porosity to be poorly connected or permanently water-saturated. Here, we explicitly distinguish between grain-filling microporosity and pore-filling intermediate-sized pores, whose contributions to flow differ. We show...
Accurate prediction of water saturation (Sw) is paramount for evaluating reserves and productivity in tight sandstone gas reservoirs. However, the strong heterogeneity, complex pore-throat structures, and high clay content of these reservoirs pose significant challenges for traditional petrophysical models (Archie’s equations) and pure data-driven machine learning (ML) methods. While ML models...
In porous geological or environmental systems, many processes such as transport, mixing, chemical reactions, and biological activity are determined by fluid flow, making it essential to understand and characterise flow processes. While continuous-scale reactive transport models generally rely on effective parameters derived from the assumption of homogeneous mixing at the pore scale, natural...
Reactive transport of CO₂-acidified fluids in sedimentary rocks induces pore-scale dissolution of cementing phases, leading to evolving porosity, connectivity, and flow pathways that critically influence injectivity and long-term storage performance in geological carbon storage. In siliciclastic reservoirs, carbonate pore cement is particularly susceptible to chemical alteration; however,...
Accurate image-based characterization of pore structure and permeability is often limited by the trade-off between field of view and resolution. To quantify how image resolution systematically biases pore metrics in dense sandstone, we construct a true-physical multiscale dataset by repeatedly scanning the same fixed surface region with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and spatial...
Geological sequestration of CO2 has emerged as a promising and viable strategy to mitigate climate change by injecting supercritical CO2 (scCO2) into deep subsurface formations for long-term containment. This process can induce salt precipitation, a phenomenon where dissolved salts crystallize out of pore brine. Such precipitation poses significant challenges, including pore blockage, reduced...
Fractures act as highly conductive pathways, strongly influencing flow and transport in subsurface formations. Accurately modeling their effects is challenging due to the high uncertainty in fracture configurations. Monte Carlo simulations (MCS) are commonly used to estimate flow and transport behavior, but they are computationally expensive and subject to considerable uncertainties. To...
Understanding snap-off dynamics in pore–throat channels with non-circular cross-sections is crucial for subsurface applications, as most natural porous rocks exhibit complex geometrical features. The fundamental mechanism governing snap-off in non-circular pore–throat systems is identified as a curvature-gradient-driven instability, which is further modulated by geometric constraints and fluid...
Biological tissues, sediments, or engineered systems are spatially structured media with a tortuous and porous structure that host the flow of fluids. Such complex environments can influence the spatial and temporal colonization patterns of bacteria by controlling the transport of individual bacterial cells, the availability of resources, and the distribution of chemical signals for...
To evaluate the gas injection potential for horizontal wells in tight oil reservoirs, a combined approach of nuclear magnetic resonance technology and gas displacement-oil physical model experiments was applied to core samples of tight oil reservoirs, investigating the distribution characteristics of crude oil in the reservoir and post-gas displacement micro-residual oil. The study revealed:...
Mass transport in compacted bentonite buffers dominated by sodium montmorillonite (Na-MMT) for deep geological repositories is diffusion-controlled and governed by the hydration state and microstructure of Na–MMT. While experiments constrain bulk behavior, they do not resolve the pore- and platelet-scale mechanisms linking interparticle interactions to transport and mechanical response.
We...
The growing awareness of environmental issues is driving the printing industry towards the use of water-based inks. These type of inks typically contain water, cosolvents, surfactants, pigments and polymeric particles [1]. To optimize the print quality, a thorough understanding of the transport of all ink components in thin porous media is needed. A lot of research on surfactants in porous...
Relative permeability and capillary pressure are key petrophysical parameters for subsurface applications such as hydrogen and CO2 storage. However, obtaining them from laboratory measurements or pore-scale numerical simulations is time-consuming and computationally expensive, especially for large-size rocks. Existing artificial intelligence methods often rely on hand-crafted petrophysical...
Zwitterionic surfactant stabilised oil-water separation using novel composite electrospun nanofibrous-phase inverted PES membranes
Akmaral Karamergenova a, Junjie Wu b
a Nazarbayev University Research Administration, Astana, Kazakhstan, 010000
b Aston University, Birmigham, United Kingdom, B4 7ET
Water scarcity is an escalating global concern, making the reuse of wastewater a critical...
Understanding multiphase fluid flow in porous media is fundamental to managing subsurface resources (such as allocating pore space for carbon storage and freshwater protection) and ensuring energy security. This study presents preliminary results from a dynamic investigation of the primary drainage process within water-wet carbonate rock samples. The displacement of water by oil is governed by...
Coalbed methane (CBM) reservoirs store gas primarily by adsorption in nanoporous coal matrices while flow occurs through stress-sensitive cleat networks. During CO2-enhanced coalbed methane recovery (CO2-ECBM), preferential CO2 sorption promotes CH4 desorption and enables long-term CO2 sequestration through competitive adsorption effects [1]. However, field operations often face a progressive...
Keywords: MICP – Material interface – Permeability reduction
Abstract
Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) is a promising eco-friendly technology for enhancing mechanical properties and durability of subsurface formations. This biogeochemical process, driven by metabolic activities, such as ureolysis or ammonification [1] of specific microorganisms, results in the...
Foam injection has attracted increasing interest as an effective strategy for improving gas mobility control in subsurface processes, including CO$_2$ utilization and storage, enhanced oil recovery, and environmental remediation. Recent advances show that incorporating nanoparticles can significantly enhance foam stability, particularly under harsh reservoir conditions. However, nanoparticle...
Bacteria sense chemical gradients, adjusting their swimming to move up nutrients or away from harmful chemicals. While our understanding of bacterial chemotaxis in steady and idealized environments has significantly improved, we know much less about the role of chemotaxis in real environments with dynamic flows, unsteady chemical gradients, and complex microstructure. Here, we use microfluidic...
In bakery products, quality attributes such as texture, colour, softness and springiness of the crumb are important attributes for consumer’s perception. These attributes mainly set up during the baking stage and are influenced by baking conditions. Many physical and chemical changes occur to lead to a porous structure. The objective of this work is to follow the setting of a bread structure...
Comprehensive Analysis and Modeling of Gas Slippage Effects Governing Permeability in Tight Porous Media for H2 and CO2 storage
Objectives/Scope:
This paper aims to critically evaluate and classify gas slippage models for predicting permeability in tight and nanoporous formations. It investigates first-order, second-order, and non-ideal gas flow behaviours, with a focus on the impact of...
Regardless of how we look at AI large language models (LLMs) - as a massive collection of data from which we can cleverly extract information, as an assistant who can perform simple tasks for us and write simple codes, or perhaps as a machine that randomly selects words, in a sense guided by what it have had has seen in the past - we are undoubtedly witnessing a revolution.
In the...
Flow maldistribution is a persistent limitation of narrow packed beds, where wall effects can dominate the internal structure and create preferential high-velocity channels. These channels lead to non-uniform residence times, reduced heat and mass transfer efficiency, and uneven reactor performance. This study investigates a simple passive strategy to mitigate this problem: introducing a...
Surfactant-enhanced remediation (SER) is an effective method for removing petroleum hydrocarbons from contaminated soils by increasing solubilization and desorption. However, SER efficiency is governed by complex, nonlinear interactions between soil properties, contaminants, and surfactants that are not fully captured by conventional empirical or mechanistic models. This complexity...
The microstructural evolution of cementitious materials strongly governs their durability and transport properties. In marine environments, these properties are of particular importance for the long-term durability of reinforced concrete structures, particularly for floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs). Concrete used for FOWTs is expected to enable long service lives with reduced...
Fine particle migration and deposition (fines invasion) strongly modulate permeability, pressure drop, and clogging in porous materials, with major consequences for subsurface energy systems, drilling, filtration, and a wide range of engineered porous media. Yet fines transport remains difficult to predict because pore-scale mechanisms are rarely observed directly in 3D under dynamic flow,...
We have simulated a one dimensional capillary fiber bundle model with fracking events while acted between a certain pressure gradient. The hydraulic fractures are incorporated through a dynamic threshold corresponding to each tube that decreases with each fracking event, which are stochastic in nature and replicates the increase in pore space. An increment in flow rate is evident through the...
The behavior of pollutant sources after remediation remains a relatively underexplored topic. For sites contaminated by volatile organic compounds (VOCs), soil vapor extraction is a widely applied field technique. Following a venting phase, an increase in VOC concentrations in the soil air can be observed. This increase is partly due to the return to re-equilibration governed by mass transfer...
The crystallization of salts within porous media is a major cause of deterioration in construction materials, geomaterials, and cultural heritage. As salts precipitate, they can generate significant mechanical stresses on pore walls, causing progressive damage. Despite its long-standing recognition and practical importance, in-pore crystallization of salts remains poorly understood, and large...
Pressure gradient fluctuates substantially, rapidly, and sometimes wildly, in foam flow through the porespace of rock, by as much as +/- 25%, as illustrated in the first two figures (Salazar-Castillo and Rossen, 2020). The cause is the shifting capillary resistance to movement of liquid films, or lamellae, between bubbles in the irregular porespace (Rossen, 1990). The third figure below shows...
Fluid transport in porous media is commonly predicted using petrophysical properties derived from geophysical well logs, which provide indirect proxies for porosity, permeability, and fluid saturation at the reservoir scale. In many sedimentary reservoirs, these log-derived properties form the basis for static and dynamic modeling workflows. However, in sandstone-hosted uranium deposits...
Characterizing how water moves through variably saturated soil layers is essential not only for hydrological modeling but also for interpreting gravity signals recorded at surface or subsurface stations. Even small variations in subsurface water content can modify the local mass distribution and lead to measurable gravity changes. Because of this sensitivity, linking hydrological processes to...
We investigate the shape and diffusion-limited evaporation of a sessile droplet pinned on an inclined solid substrate in the small Bond number regime. The theoretical description is based on an analytical framework that accounts for weak gravity-induced deformation of the droplet interface \cite{timm2019evaporation,popov2005evaporative}. Predicted droplet shapes are quantitatively validated...
Long-term geological CO₂ sequestration is governed by strongly coupled thermo–hydro–chemical (THC) processes operating within heterogeneous formations across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Reliable assessment of storage efficiency and long-term mineral trapping requires resolving nonlinear multiphase flow, temperature-dependent geochemical reactions, and porosity–permeability feedbacks...
Depleted shale reservoirs are regarded as promising sites for large-scale underground hydrogen storage due to their low cost, large capacity, and high recovery purity. However, during storage, geochemical and biochemical reactions involving the injected hydrogen can generate H2S—a contaminant that reduces gas purity during the production phase. Owing to atomic substitution, nanopores within...
Injection of CO₂ into saline aquifers can induce capillary-driven drying of residual brine in the near-wellbore region, leading to salt precipitation and a potential reduction in injectivity. This phenomenon represents a key operational risk for geological CO₂ storage, particularly under conditions where drying and precipitation processes are strongly coupled to local flow behaviour. Previous...
Flow in karst conduit networks often departs from the laminar regime and exhibits turbulent behavior, leading to non-linear relationships between hydraulic head losses and flow rates. Incorporating such non-linear effects in large-scale network models remains a major challenge.
In this work, we investigate the inclusion of turbulent flow effects in graph-based representations of karst...
Carbonate rocks form some of the most complex and significant reservoirs globally, accounting for nearly half of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves. Understanding their physical properties is crucial for improving reservoir characterization and supporting the development of enhanced oil recovery strategies. In prolific carbonate reservoirs, rock characterization is challenging due to their...
Near-wellbore effects play a key role in controlling the performance of CO₂–WAG injection in carbonate reservoirs, particularly in complex environments such as the Brazilian Pre-Salt. The skin factor, which quantifies changes in flow capacity resulting from formation damage or well stimulation, directly affects injectivity and strongly influences both hydraulic behavior and geochemical...
Abstract：To achieve the dual-carbon goals and promote the efficient utilization and geological sequestration of carbon dioxide, an intelligent CO₂-responsive gel was developed for application in low-permeability, heterogeneous continental reservoirs to enhance CO₂ flooding efficiency and mitigate gas channeling during CO₂ flooding and geological sequestration. A monomeric long-chain tertiary...
Acid fracturing is a technique that enhance the petroleum and natural gas production in carbonate formations. In fracture-hole carbonate reservoirs, the acid-etched fracture shape is unpredictable with the influence of the multi-holes structure. Based on the carbonate specimens from Sichuan, China, a series of physical and numerical simulations were carried out to study the interaction...
The availability of key soil nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, is strongly governed by soil redox conditions, making redox dynamics a key determinant of both agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. These redox conditions are directly linked to oxygen concentrations in porewater, which are highly dynamic and fluctuate significantly over millimeter-scale...
In 2021, the FluidFlower validation benchmark study was initiated to assess reservoir simulation performance in a meter-scale, geologically complex setting [1]. The benchmark provided a unique dataset in which experimental observations were systematically compared against simulation results from multiple research groups. Among its key contributions were high-resolution imaging datasets of...
Microbial activity transforms subsurface environments into living porous media whose physical and chemical properties evolve dynamically in space and time. Through growth and biofilm formation, microbes clog pores, redistribute flow paths, and modify permeability, thereby reshaping fluid flow, solute transport, and redox conditions. Yet, these coupled processes remain highly uncertain,...
Filtration flows through nanoporous membranes play a crucial role in a range of cutting-edge technologies, including water purification, osmotic power generation, and targeted drug delivery. Molecular dynamics simulations are currently considered the state-of-the-art approach for modeling nanofiltration processes.
However, their high computational cost makes simulating large-scale filtration...
The study of mass transport in porous media is central to many environmental and engineering applications, including hydrogeology, energy systems, and agriculture. In the context of sustainable agriculture, conventional fertilizers often suffer from low efficiency due to a significant mismatch between the timescale of nutrient transport in soil and the timescale of plant uptake, leading to...
Hydrogen-based direct reduction (DRI) is a key route to eliminating CO$_2$ emissions from iron and steel production. Reactor-scale models of hydrogen DRI rely on effective transport properties such as permeability, pressure drop, and heat and mass transfer coefficients that emerge from complex flow through packed beds of porous iron ore pellets. To better understand and parameterize these...
Decarbonizing residential heating is a critical challenge in the energy transition, as the sector remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels. To enable a shift toward sustainable heating, efficient storage systems are required to bridge the gap between intermittent renewable supply and domestic demand. Thermochemical energy storage (TCES) using sodium sulfide (Na2S) offers a compelling solution,...
Interfacial instabilities are ubiquitous in nature and often give rise to fascinating patterns. One such hydrodynamic instability is viscous fingering [1], which occurs when a more viscous fluid is displaced by a less viscous one in a porous medium. Also, when a fluid mixture enters the spinodal region (where the second derivative of the free energy is negative), the mixture becomes...
Capillary forces govern fluid distribution in reservoir rocks and control multiphase transport in porous media. Quantitative evaluation of wettability, particularly in dynamically evolving systems, often relies on determining the contact angle through measurement of interfacial curvature. However, complex interface dynamics may lead to deviation of the apparent contact angle from the real...
The simultaneous determination of relative permeability ($k_r$) and capillary pressure ($P_c$) from UnSteady-State (USS) coreflooding data remains a complex estimation problem. Standard interpretation often relies on single-rate experiments, where the cumulative oil production (NP) and differential pressure ($\Delta P$) data may not contain sufficient information to decouple viscous forces...
Hydrogen is widely recognized as a key energy carrier for enabling the transition to low-carbon, fully decarbonized energy systems. While hydrogen generation processes such as pyrolysis and serpentinization have been extensively studied, the role of pore-scale transport and fluid distribution in controlling hydrogen behavior remains insufficiently understood. In particular, the interplay...
The fourth-generation synchrotron at LNLS/Sirius delivers low- to high-energy X-rays with high photon flux, enabling high-resolution 3D tomography within seconds when combined with advanced detectors. The MOGNO beamline at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS/Sirius), located at CNPEM [1], provides nano- to micrometer-scale computed tomography, focusing on multiscale analysis...
Chemical diffusion in disordered porous media plays a crucial role in various geochemical processes, including secondary mineral formation, dissolution kinetics, redox reactions, nutrient transport at root-soil interfaces, and interactions between solutes and charged surfaces. Therefore, a robust quantitative understanding of these processes is essential across multiple disciplines in...
Carbon monoxide (CO), produced via partial oxidation and steam reforming processes, is an important feedstock in the chemical industry. Efficient and selective separation of CO from industrial gas mixtures remains a key challenge, particularly in complex byproduct streams containing multiple gas components. In this study, pore-engineered Cu(I)-loaded pelletized activated carbon (AC) adsorbents...
Reasonable prediction and evaluation of reservoir parameters are fundamental to reservoir geological modeling and refined hydrocarbon reservoir assessment. To address the limitations of traditional physical testing methods—such as prolonged parameter acquisition time and uncertainty in data processing, 17 artificial intelligence (AI)-based parameter prediction models were firstly compared....
Hydrogen (H$_2$) containment in the subsurface is of growing importance for underground energy storage and is also relevant to nuclear waste disposal, where H$_2$ may be generated as a by-product, e.g. from radiolysis. Underground hydrogen storage will be done in reservoir formations sealed by low-permeability rocks, while engineered barrier systems for nuclear waste disposal are hosted within...
Enzyme-induced calcite precipitation (EICP) is a bio-cementation technique widely used for soil stabilization, hydraulic control, and groundwater management. By inducing calcite precipitation within pore spaces, EICP modifies the pore structure of porous media and, consequently, alters their flow and transport behavior. Establishing clear links between pore-scale structural evolution and...
Due to spontaneous local density fluctuations, transient bubbles can be observed in liquids, even in the stable phase. This is even more true for metastable liquids, and, in this case, it is obviously highly relevant for the liquid-to-vapor transition, since the nucleation of the new phase will occur through bubble growth. In the context of liquids confined in porous media, the question of the...
Waterflooding in fracture–vug media is frequently dominated by preferential flow through fractures, resulting in strong channeling, early water breakthrough, limited sweep efficiency, and high residual oil. Although visual experiments have been widely used to illustrate these behaviors, quantitative understanding of how fracture aperture controls breakthrough and recovery—especially at the...
Natural rocks in subsurface energy reservoir are heterogeneous and consist of fractures, solid and fluid phases that form complex structures at multiple scales. Explicit incorporation of multiple scales of fractures and heterogeneities into large-scale tightly coupled models is impractical and would cause tremendous computational costs. Therefore, efficient multi-scale and multi-physics...
Ceramic porous structures are effective tools for managing heat in demanding systems, such as heat
exchangers, porous burners, and volumetric solar receivers. These materials are ideal for high-temperature
use because of their high melting points and low thermal expansion. Recent developments in additive
manufacturing, such as Powder Bed Fusion combined with polymer infiltration, allow for...
The term "kerogen" is defined as the organic matter (OM) that produces oil during the geological process of thermal maturation, in which the OM is progressively exposed to higher temperatures and pressures. The kerogen maturity indicates whether it is in a state of oil generation (immature), gas generation (mature), or above its hydrocarbon production stage (overmature). In the so-called van...
Previous studies on movable fluid saturation have primarily used centrifugal experiments combined with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to characterize sandstone samples. However, this method only provides the overall saturation of the movable fluid, failing to reflect the distribution of the fluid within specific pores and throats, thereby hindering detailed reservoir evaluation. This...
Suffusion refers to the migration of fine particles through the pore network of internally unstable soils under seepage flow. Constitutive models developed for static hydraulic conditions are used to describe fine-particle fluidization in numerical analyses. These models take into account a key parameter i.e., the initiation interstitial velocity, which marks the onset of suffusion and it...
The subsurface is a complex fractured and/or porous system consisting of void spaces through which fluids can flow, and solid structures such as rocks pebbles and aggregates. There, water carries nutrients, dissolved and non-dissolved gases whose interactions with porous structures give rise to a plethora of processes including chemical reactions and colloidal filtration. The latter is central...
Accurate estimation of elastic and seismic properties is a cornerstone of digital rock physics, supporting rock-physics modeling, geomechanics, and reservoir characterization. Reliable numerical prediction of compressional and shear wave velocities (Vp and Vs) is essential for linking pore-scale microstructure to field-scale seismic observations used in reservoir evaluation, well placement,...
Fluid flow in coupled systems, which consist of a free-flow region and an adjacent porous medium occurs in a variety of environmental and industrial applications, such as soil–water interactions and industrial filtration. In this work, we investigate the mathematical formulation of these systems, which are modeled by a coupled Stokes-Darcy system with interface conditions governed by the...
Energy geosciences fields in the context of carbon neutrality include geological storage of carbon dioxide and green hydrogen, enhanced geothermal energy utilization, efficient shale oil and gas extraction, high-level nuclear waste geological repository. It involves sandstone, carbonate rock, mudstone, salt rock, granite, basalt and other rocks, and natural fractures are commonly developed or...
Experimental studies have identified an intermittent multiphase flow regime in porous rocks that emerges between classical Darcy flow and ganglion dynamics, characterised by persistent flow pathways coexisting with localised regions of transient phase switching. Despite its relevance to subsurface energy applications such as carbon storage and hydrogen transport, the pore-scale origins of this...
Geological CO2 storage and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) are essential to addressing the global energy needs and preventing climate change. This research examines the polymer-enhanced CO2 foam (PEF) as a superior technique in EOR and CO2 sequestration. Traditional CO2 foams are limited by their quick instability and inability to be controlled in mobility during severe reservoir conditions, which...
The biochemical fate of hydrogen injected into porous subsurface geological formations during underground hydrogen storage (UHS) is determined primarily by the rates at which dissimilatory sulphate reduction, hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis, and homoacetogenesis occur. The in-situ rates at which these reactions occur are constrained by reservoir conditions, nutrient availability, and electron...
This study evaluates fly ash blends including Class C fly ash, Class F fly ash, and a bottom ash processed to meet Class F fly ash classification as supplementary cementitious materials in air-entrained concrete by quantifying influence on air entrainment, air void development, compressive strength, and fracture network formation during mechanical failure. Foam Index tests determine the...
Hydraulic fracturing in laminated continental shale commonly generates complex fracture systems, in which fracture geometry plays a critical role in proppant transport and placement. However, most existing studies rely on idealized planar fracture assumptions, which limits the mechanistic understanding of proppant placement failure under complex fracture geometries.In this study, large-scale...
Numerous studies and field applications have shown that emulsification is an important mechanism that significantly increases the volume of recovered oil. Specifically, emulsion delays the breakthrough time and improves the vertical sweep efficiency by selectively blocking larger pores and altering the injected fluid’s viscosity. In this work, a series of core flooding experiments were...
In the context of green chemistry, the ongoing search for alternative green solvents remains a key area of research. Given that aqueous solutions in nature typically occur in confined spaces, such as in stone or clay, the study of aqueous solutions in small confinement is particularly intriguing. Additionally, the concept of binary water-hydrotrope solutions is of particular interest....
Mogno is a microCT beamline at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Source designed for full-field imaging with hard X-rays (67.5 keV) in a cone-beam geometry, enabling the investigation of samples with dimensions of up to several centimetres. The beamline is equipped with a large-area CdTe Pimega detector, composed of a 6 × 6 array of Medipix3RX ASICs, providing a total sensitive area of 85 × 85...
Preferential flow in heterogeneous porous media leads to highly uneven transport and limits the efficiency of many natural and engineering processes. Although shear-thinning polymer solutions are widely used to modify flow behavior, their rheology often amplifies flow heterogeneity under strong permeability contrasts. Here we show that shear-thinning suspensions of cross-linked polymer...
Carbonate reservoirs in depleted oil and gas fields are widely considered suitable candidates for geological CO₂ storage due to their high porosity and extensive subsurface distribution. In the Danish North Sea, many prospective storage formations consist predominantly of chalk and other carbonate lithologies. However, the calcite-rich composition and typically low permeability of these rocks...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are ubiquitous environmental contaminants whose remediation in soils is challenging due to their amphiphilic nature, variable solubility, and resistance to degradation [1]. Although in-situ soil flushing has been investigated for PFAS-contaminated soils, conventional water-based approaches often require large water volumes and exhibit limited...
Serpentinization of ultramafic rocks offers a promising carbon-negative pathway for in-situ geologic hydrogen generation. By reacting water with magnesium-rich minerals like olivine, this process yields molecular hydrogen ($H_2$) and can simultaneously sequester carbon dioxide through mineral carbonation. However, the pore-scale mechanisms governing fluid–mineral interactions, mineral...
Porosity maps are essential tools for understanding the spatial distribution of pore space in rocks and serve as a foundation for numerical simulations that model fluid flow in porous media. Moreover, the spatial heterogeneity of porosity enables the identification of regions with greater or lesser storage and flow capacity. In this study, porosity maps were generated from X-ray micro-computed...
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are a major driver of global warming, prompting growing interest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. Among emerging approaches, sequestrating carbon into marine sediments has gained attention, as it enables the formation of gas hydrates that can securely store CO2. Despite its potential, the effectiveness of this method strongly depends on the...
Particle migration and pore clogging in porous media represent prevalent phenomena in oil and gas engineering. These processes inevitably constitute a primary constraint on efficient production operations. Consequently, a comprehensive understanding of migration and clogging mechanisms governing complex particle systems during multiphase flow in porous media holds considerable significance....
Recently, proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have attracted increasing attention due to their potential for sustainable energy production [1]. PEMFCs are considered a compelling choice due to their rapid start-up, high energy conversion efficiency, and minimal environmental impact [2]. However, to promote their usability, careful thermal and water management is necessary to sustain...
CO₂ injection into shale integrates resource exploration with carbon sequestration. Prior investigations have relied predominantly on crushed samples or CO₂-brine mixtures to study long-term geochemical interactions during soaking. Consequently, the essential mechanisms governing the evolution of flow capacity and microstructure across different injection methods remain poorly understood under...
Foam injection in porous media has been extensively studied for its ability to improve sweep efficiency and gas conformance by mitigating nonlinear phenomena, such as gravitational segregation and viscous fingering. However, modeling foam flow remains a significant challenge, particularly in geologically complex formations, due to difficulties in accurately characterizing the permeability...
An oil flow-rate prediction methodology is presented that leverages field production data and data-driven modeling as its basis for calculations. The approach utilizes Hassi Messaoud’s extensive well-test database to refine existing empirical correlations and machine-learning models under real operating conditions. Results are evaluated against conventional multiphase flow models, which are...
Saline formations predominantly comprise sandstone lithologies, with pronounced reservoir heterogeneity observed in Chinese sandstone formations. The spatial distribution of CO2 flow and occurrence in heterogeneous sandstone reservoirs is intrinsically linked to storage efficiency and displacement effectiveness. Consequently, investigating the flow process and characteristics of CO2-brine...
To meet the forecast demand for underground hydrogen storage, additional storage capacity in salt caverns and porous rock-formations will be needed (IEA, 2023). The reactivity of molecular hydrogen can trigger different geochemical processes in porous storage formations, for example the reduction of Fe(III) in hematite (Fe2O3) to Fe(II) (Hydrogen-TCP, 2023). Due to the heterogenous nature of...
Biofilms are communities of bacteria embedded in a self-secreted extracellular matrix (ECM) that typically exist in either surface-attached or floating structures. The ECM, characterized as viscoelastic, primarily comprises exopolysaccharides and structural proteins that protect the bacteria from environmental stresses. In porous media, such as soils, biofilms develop under hydrodynamic flow,...
Ultra-deep oil and gas reservoirs are commonly characterized by extreme geological and downhole conditions, including high temperature, high pressure, and strong heterogeneity. These conditions make it difficult for conventional hydraulic fracturing to achieve balanced stimulation across multiple layers. To address this issue, this study investigates a soft zonal isolation technology based on...
Nitrate is the most common inorganic contaminant in aquifers worldwide and is almost ubiquitous in urban unconfined aquifers in the state of São Paulo (Brazil). It poses a significant challenge for a state in which more than 80% of municipalities rely on groundwater. However, the control mechanisms governing nitrogen species in groundwater remain incompletely understood. Recent studies have...
Accurate forecasting of well production is critical for managing shale gas development, yet remains challenging because of multiscale heterogeneity, strong geological–engineering coupling and complex flow regimes in ultra tight, multi porosity media. Here we develop a multi scale, AI enabled workflow that integrates digital rock physics, geological and engineering descriptors, and field...
Microneedle (MN) technologies are emerging as a transformative alternative to conventional hypodermic needles, addressing long-standing challenges associated with pain, needle phobia, needle-stick injuries, and poor patient compliance. By minimally breaching the stratum corneum, microneedles enable safe, painless, self-administered delivery of drugs, vaccines, and cosmetics, while also...
Abstract
Acid fracturing in tight formations is a representative example of reactive flow coupled with rock deformation and fracture growth, and it remains a widely used stimulation technique[1]. A variety of numerical approaches have been applied to study the dynamic fracture propagation process, including the finite element method (FEM)[2], boundary element method (BEM)[3], discrete element...
Promising approaches to address the long‐term depletion of fossil resources and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, photo‐reactive processes enable the conversion of light energy into storable chemical energy carriers through the implementation of artificial photosynthetic reactions. The design and optimization of these processes, constrained by radiation and highly sensitive to...
The hydrodynamics of partially saturated coastal sediments under periodic forcing are investigated through a multi-disciplinary approach combining semi-analytical modeling (Moving Multi-Front) and laboratory experiment (Tide Machine). The Moving Multi-Front (MMF) method is presented as a robust Lagrangian semi-analytical approach for analyzing the response of partially saturated flow to...
Foams are materials composed of gas bubbles separated by thin liquid films, resulting in extremely low density and distinctive mechanical properties. When confined within porous and granular media, their metastable structure is profoundly altered by geometrical constraints imposed by the pore space. Aging mechanisms no longer proceed as in bulk foams, but are instead governed by pore-scale...
Solute mixing in porous media results from the interplay between molecular diffusion and the deformation of fluid parcels as they flow through the pore space. In three-dimensional porous media, fluid deformation is asymptotically governed by exponential stretching of fluid elements, induced by saddle points in the velocity field transverse to the mean flow direction (highlighted by black...
High entropy ceramics (HECs) based on refractory carbides and diborides have emerged as a promising class of ultra-high-performance materials due to their exceptional mechanical robustness and thermal stability arising from severe compositional complexity. In this work, a comprehensive first-principles investigation is presented on non-equiatomic high entropy carbides (HECs) and high entropy...
We present a physics-aware deep learning framework for predicting heat flow in heterogeneous geothermal reservoirs. The proposed approach integrates graph neural networks (GNNs) with Transformer-based temporal modeling to serve as a fast and accurate surrogate for conventional reservoir simulators. Spatial representations are constructed through coefficient-aware algebraic multigrid (AMG)...
Flow across interfaces between free-flow and porous media can be modeled using a broad spectrum of mathematical and numerical approaches.
These range from effective jump and transmission conditions, such as Beavers–Joseph-type coupling conditions, methods that infer interface properties from reference configurations, to higher-resolution descriptions that explicitly resolve the interface...
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a key strategy for mitigating climate change through the capture and long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂), the most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for approximately 74.5% of global emissions. CCS projects involve the storage of CO₂ in both onshore and offshore geological formations and are being implemented worldwide, particularly in...
Sedimentary rocks, besides being a key component in the Earth’s subsurface, serve as natural resources and play a vital role in several geological and engineering applications. They form aquifers, reservoir rocks for underground gas storage and are used for building infrastructure. Their durability is hence a significant variable in predicting and assessing long-term challenges. A key process...
Bacterial biofilms play a crucial role in environmental and engineering porous media, affecting flow, solute transport, and contaminant degradation. Understanding the interplay between bacterial biofilms and the structural heterogeneity of porous media, as well as the effect of water flow conditions, is fundamental for modeling these processes. Additionally, the impact of various biofilm...
This study examines the linear and nonlinear stability of double-diffusive convection in a horizontal, fluid-saturated porous layer, accounting for a nonlinear Boussinesq approximation, uniform internal heat generation, and magnetic field effects. The momentum transport is modeled using the Forchheimer extension to Darcy’s law in order to capture quadratic inertial drag. Linear stability...
Gas hydrates are solid compounds formed by crystallization of water and gas upon cooling and/or pressurization. Hydrates form naturally in marine sediments and permafrost (mostly CH4), whereas CO2 hydrates form during carbon subsurface storage due to rapid gas expansion, which can inhibit further injection. Changes in porosity affect further fluid transport, mechanical stability, and gas-water...
Engineered injection and extraction (EIE) systems can generate chaotic flow under laminar conditions in porous media and are well known to enhance the mixing between a solute and a solvent under constant density conditions, making them promising approaches for groundwater remediation. However, the impact of solute density on the mixing enhancement by chaotic advection is not fully understood....
The additive manufacturing by molten material extrusion of edible and (bio-)resorbable parts based on zein, a protein by-product of corn starch production, opens up perspectives for application in food processing, biomedical or pharmaceutical fields.
Adhesion between deposited layers requires filaments spreading and diffusion of polymer molecules at their interface. Then, fusion-bonding has...
Pressure drop is a key performance indicator in any system involving flow through porous media (filters, catalytic beds, membranes, soil, packed columns, fuel cells, etc.). Many studies have been concerned with the understanding of the microscopic influence on the macroscopic transport properties. Hence, various porous media flow models and techniques have been developed over the years....
In the context of soil contamination by NAPLs (Non Aqueous Phase Liquids) and planification of remediation, understanding of the behaviour of the source zone, particularly its lifetime and to development of the contaminated plume, is essential. The use of predictive modeling is therefore necessary, as it allows the lifespan of the pollution source and/or its impact to be estimated in the...
Bacteria exist in two primary states: as free-floating planktonic cells or as sessile communities known as biofilms, which are embedded in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Biofilms confer survival advantages, including nutrient retention, resistance to antibiotics, and facilitation of horizontal gene transfer. While biofilm formation has been extensively studied in...
Anomalous transport in the microvasculature is increasingly recognized as a major contributor to tissue hypoperfusion. Perfusion studies often assume that metabolite delivery scales directly with blood flow volume, but this assumption neglects cases where blood may become metabolite-depleted before reaching target tissue. As a result, regions can receive seemingly normal levels of blood flow...
The measurement of nitrogen adsorption isotherms by volumetric technique is a standard way to characterize mesoporous materials. However, this technique does not allow for the continuous measurement of the amount $m$ of condensed fluid as a function of the surrounding gas pressure $P$, a capability that has been shown to provide detailed insights into the cavitation process in porous materials...
The broad application of engineered nanoparticles in various fields leads to their inevitable release into the natural environment, causing soil and groundwater contamination. Bacteria, ubiquitous in the subsurface, can alter the transport behavior of nanoparticles. Hence, it is imperative to understand the interactions between nanoparticles and bacteria in the subsurface to protect drinking...
The first modern pyrolysis model is attributed to Bamford, Crank, and Malan (1946), whose pioneering work introduced a heat conduction equation incorporating a sink term for the heat of pyrolysis. Since then, pyrolysis modeling has evolved into a multifaceted field, with diverse approaches emerging across disciplines and driven by applications in aerospace thermal protection systems,...
This contribution examines the long-term mechanical response of salt caverns operated for underground hydrogen storage, emphasizing how pore-fluid effects can alter integrity assessments. Salt is often idealized as a nearly impermeable, homogeneous viscoplastic solid; however, even limited porosity can enable pore-pressure diffusion and fluid–solid coupling that become relevant under repeated...
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...
Freeze-thaw dynamics in subsurface rocks are strongly controlled by fracture networks, yet the combined effects of fracture geometry, temperature evolution, and flow redistribution remain poorly understood. Our study investigates the influence of fracture network properties (e.g. connectivity, density, and length distribution) on groundwater flow, heat transport, and ice formation during...
Understanding emulsion formation and transport in porous media is critical for improving oil recovery and predicting flow behavior during water-based enhanced oil recovery (EOR). This study investigates nanoparticle-assisted emulsion generation, stability, and flow behavior through an integrated experimental and data-driven approach.
Laboratory screening experiments were first conducted to...
Underground hydrogen storage has emerged as a critical component in the transition to a low-carbon energy future, necessitating a deeper understanding of microbial interactions within storage reservoirs. Numerous studies have investigated gas-water-rock-microbe (GWRM) interactions in underground hydrogen storage (UHS), focusing on changes in gas composition, microbial community structure, and...
Smectite-rich fault zones play a central role in controlling the mechanical behavior of shallow plate boundaries, where the transition between seismic and aseismic slip remains poorly understood. The frictional and rheological properties of smectite are strongly governed by the hydration state of its interlayer space. Classical thermodynamic and geochemical models generally assume equality...
Gas production is expected in radioactive-waste disposal structures as a result of metal corrosion, leading to a slow increase in gas pressure within engineered barriers. It is essential to investigate gas migration mechanisms at low pressures. In this study, gas permeability and gas diffusion coefficients of an industrial concrete considered for radioactive-waste repository were measured....
To address the key challenges encountered in shale oil CO2 huff-and-puff development, including low sweep efficiency, severe gas channeling, and insufficient energy supplementation, a chemical-assisted CO2 enhanced huff-and-puff strategy based on interfacial regulation is proposed. Using microfluidic visualized displacement experiments, core-scale huff-and-puff tests, and online nuclear...
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) in geological formations is a promising approach to mitigating CO₂ emissions, with mineralization providing a stable, long-term solution. In this process, CO₂ dissolves in brine and reacts with minerals in the rock matrix, leading to the precipitation of stable carbonate phases. However, understanding the evolution of crystallization within the rock matrix is...
Water-bearing microfractures in concrete exhibit the ability to heal, leading to the closure of the fracture. Since concrete cracks provide a passage for chemical compounds that lead to the deterioration of the cementitious matrix and steel reinforcements, this self-healing capability is a crucial feature, enhancing the durability and longevity of concrete. One of the most important...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a family of compounds listed as persistent, mobile and toxic, posing significant risks to human health and ecosystems. Some PFAS, notably those present in Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF) exhibit significant adsorption at fluid-fluid interfaces (e.g., air-water interfaces), which plays a crucial role in their transport through soil and groundwater...
Electrolysis is a process that uses electrical energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Oxygen is produced at the anode. Hydrogen is produced at the cathode. Gas bubbles can cover reaction zones, disturb fluid flow, and reduce system efficiency. Therefore, effective bubble removal is critical to maintain performance. This study focuses on characterizing bubble transport in...
Although microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices have revolutionised analytical chemistry and point-of-care diagnostics, their availability is restricted by high manufacturing costs and specialized equipment, especially in environments with limited resources. This work presents a novel, ultra-low-cost approach to creating functional microfluidic channels on porous paper substrates using readily...
In this presentation, we discuss an ongoing effort to use machine learning for the design of porous architectures that regulate liquid-metal behavior in fusion reactor first walls. Liquid metals are attractive plasma-facing materials because they can continuously renew the surface and mitigate irradiation damage. However, controlling liquid exposure to the plasma while limiting evaporation and...
Mixing of solutes in porous media is controlled by the complex interaction between advection, diffusion and pore scale heterogeneity. While many studies focus on bulk metrics such as breakthrough curves, the impact of the microscopic (pore-scale) controlling mechanisms under confinement and the detailed structure of the mixing front – where concentration gradients and scalar dissipation are...
Soil organic matter turnover is a key regulator of the global carbon cycle and soil fertility. We present a mechanistic, spatially explicit model that couples microbial growth, necromass formation, and carbon–nitrogen cycling with dynamic soil structure. Soil aggregation and pore connectivity, together with the spatial distribution and quality of substrates such as particulate organic matter...
Efficient design of CO₂ injection strategies in tight formations requires a molecular-scale understanding of how oil, CO₂, and water interact in nanopores with distinct wall chemistries under partial water saturation. In this work, molecular dynamics simulations are used to examine primary depletion and subsequent CO₂ huff-n-puff in representative inorganic and organic nanopores. In quartz...
Heterogeneity in reservoir porous media causes injected fluids to preferentially flow through pathways of least resistance, resulting in uneven pore-scale displacement and severe flow imbalance along the reservoir profile. This phenomenon significantly reduces sweep efficiency and limits oil recovery. Polymer-based gels are commonly used for water shutoff; however, in low-permeability...
This research investigates osteosarcoma, a complex malignant bone tumor predominantly affecting adolescents and young adults. It is characterized by anarchic bone matrix production by tumor cells. Its high spatial and temporal heterogeneity across multiple scales presents significant challenges for identifying therapeutic targets.
This study examines chemotherapy resistance and subsequent...
The development of sustainable solvent systems is a central objective in green chemistry, with aqueous mixtures playing a key role due to their environmental compatibility and tunable properties. In this context, water-diol mixtures have attracted increasing attention, as diols combine hydrophilic and hydrophobic characteristics and can modulate the physicochemical behavior of water. Liquid...
The Tarim ultra-deep, fractured, low-porosity sandstone gas reservoir is deeply buried and is characterized by high temperature, high pressure, high in-situ stress, multi-scale fracture development, and strong edge and bottom water drive, which together result in a highly complex system. At present, the gas reservoir is experiencing severe problems such as water invasion and a rapid decline in...
The vadose zone plays a central role in the transport of contaminants in continental environments. In unsaturated porous media, the coexistence of air and water gives rise to strongly heterogeneous flow and concentration fields at the pore scale. Recent studies have shown that such heterogeneity leads to dispersion and mixing behaviors that deviate markedly from predictions based on saturated...
Multiphase flow in porous materials governs a wide range of subsurface and energy-related processes, including geological CO₂ sequestration, enhanced recovery, energy storage systems, and transport in porous membranes. These processes are inherently multiscale and multiphysics in nature, arising from the strong coupling between viscous flow, capillary forces, interfacial dynamics, wettability,...
Transport phenomena in biological systems are essential for maintaining life sustaining functions. Notably, biological materials, including tissues and cells can be viewed as porous media. Here we will focus on the passive transport of macromolecules in the intracellular space, involved in many cellular functions such as cell migration, blebbing and apoptosis. While it is well established that...
Porous ablative thermal protection systems (TPS) are central to the survivability of spacecraft during hypersonic and planetary atmospheric entry, where extreme convective and radiative heat loads act simultaneously on highly heterogeneous materials. In fibrous and charring ablators, such as carbon- and silica-based composites, thermal radiation penetrates beneath the surface and interacts...
Under unsaturated conditions, the coexistence of air and water generates complex, dynamically evolving interfacial structures, whose impact on solute mixing, residence times, and reactivity remains poorly understood at the pore scale. Substances transported in the water phase can interact with the air phase at the fluid-fluid interface. In particular, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)...
Wall-induced ordering in randomly packed particle beds remains a central challenge for porous systems confined by cylindrical containers. Smooth walls promote radial layering and oscillatory void-fraction patterns that decay slowly into the bulk and can compromise flow uniformity and, in reactive systems, overall performance. Although the wall effect has been extensively characterized,...
Predicting the dynamics of an interface moving through a disordered medium is a long-standing interdisciplinary scientific challenge. In physics, it is a key ingredient in modelling fluid displacements in porous and fractured media. To understand such dynamics, insight into how the disorder in the material influences micro-scale pinning and depinning events of the interface is vital. These...
Climate change challenges the water supply as decreasing groundwater recharge meets increasing water demand for agriculture, drinking water, and industry. Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is widely used as a countermeasure to maintain groundwater levels and quality. However, with increasing rainfall intensity and prolonged drought periods the availability surface runoff as a source for MAR is...
One promising solution for the development of greener chemical processes is the utilization of reversible CO2- switchable hydrophilicity solvents (CO2-SHSs) that offer an energy-friendly alternative to solvents with fixed solvation properties. CO2-SHS have been used in microfluidic platforms for the enrichment of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs in water, in liquid-liquid microextractions...
Polymer flooding for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has traditionally focused on viscosity enhancement to improve macroscopic sweep efficiency and is often assumed to have a negligible impact on microscopic oil displacement. The viscoelastic properties of polymer solutions flowing through porous media remain insufficiently explored, despite their potential to significantly enhance oil...
Objective (25-75 words)
Carbon geo-sequestration (CGS) is a key strategy for mitigating anthropogenic CO₂ emissions and addressing global climate change. A critical factor influencing the effectiveness of CO₂ storage in subsurface reservoirs is rock wettability, which governs trapping mechanisms and long-term containment security. However, significant uncertainties remain in predicting...
Multiphase immiscible flows in porous media, involving phase exchange and/or chemical reaction are central to many chemical-engineering and environmental systems, including reactors, (catalytic) distillation, aquifer remediation, and more recently green-roof substrates. However, predictive simulation remains challenging because mechanistic models that consistently connect pore-scale transport...
Large‑scale underground hydrogen storage (UHS) in porous formations requires the presence of a cushion gas to maintain reservoir pressure, but miscible mixing between hydrogen and the cushion gas reduces withdrawal purity. Quantifying dispersion and flow instabilities controlling this mixing is therefore essential for evaluating the viability and performance of UHS in porous reservoirs, which...
There are several well-known, conventional techniques for the structural characterization of carbon aerogels. However, from the point of view of possible applications as electrode materials, where these materials are mainly immersed in liquid, characterizing the size, shape and accessibility of the pores, as well as studying the solid-liquid interface reactions or the description of the...
Due to its ease of access and low investment cost, additive manufacturing (AM) is now a technology widely used in diverse fields. This technology has opened up a vast range of possibilities on different levels such as an extended product life, shortened value chains, improved resource efficiency, and made the production of customised products accessible.
In this study, a novel approach using...
The continuous release of microplastics (MPs <5 mm) has made them a global environmental concern. While early research focused on marine systems [1, 2], growing evidence shows that soils are a far larger and more persistent sink for plastic pollution [1, 3, 4]. MPs can also act as carriers for antibiotics, heavy metals, and organic pollutants, increasing risks to soil health, food safety, and...
Permeability determines how easily fluids move through porous materials, controlling flow in natural and engineered systems such as groundwater filtration, enhanced oil recovery, and CO2 sequestration. Traditional approaches to permeability calculations, based on direct experiments or numerical flow simulations, are accurate but computationally expensive.
In the first part of this...
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) plays a vital role in mitigating adverse climate impacts. To enhance its economic viability, addressing technical challenges in CCS operations is essential. One significant challenge is salt precipitation near the injection wellbore, typically occurring within 1–2 years of CO₂ injection into deep saline aquifers [1]. The severity of this precipitation not only...
Accurate prediction of fluid flow in porous media underpins the safe and efficient utilization of subsurface resources. While computational methods for porous media flow have traditionally been developed and validated within the context of oil and gas recovery, the subsurface is now increasingly envisioned as a critical asset for carbon dioxide (CO₂) sequestration and hydrogen (H₂) storage...
This presentation explores the chemo mechanical behavior of heterogeneous porous materials, with particular attention to how reaction kinetics interact with pore system characteristics. Mortars serve as a representative example of such materials due to their inherently heterogeneous pore structure.
The study focuses on delayed ettringite formation (DEF), a degradation mechanism in cement...
Open fractures in saline aquifers can significantly alter CO₂ migration and trapping, increasing uncertainty in storage performance and capacity estimates. At the same time, active reservoir management can generate strong groundwater flow fields that may further complicate CO₂ distribution in structurally heterogeneous reservoirs. However, direct experimental evidence for the combined...
In the presence of mobile water, recent experimental results and pore-scale analysis have suggested that the gas relative permeability in gas–oil systems can be very low in mixed-wet or oil-wet rocks. In this study, we investigate how three-phase relative permeability affects field-scale behavior. We show that the use of different relative permeability models provide significantly different...
Super-resolution deep-learning models are increasingly used in Digital Rock workflows to address the inherent trade-off between field of view and resolution in rock micro-CT imaging. This trade-off limits analyses requiring high-resolution characterization across broad spatial domains, particularly critical for heterogeneous rocks such as Brazilian pre-salt carbonates. These carbonates exhibit...
This work develops and validates the one-domain approach (ODA) to examine momentum transport of two-dimensional incompressible single-phase flows everywhere in a free flow/porous medium system, both in the homogeneous regions and inter-regions [1,2]. A key feature of this ODA is that it is based on generalized transport equations (GTEs) derived using the volume averaging method on the...
Mesoporous silica materials have been extensively studied for several decades, with a notable increase since the late 20th century. They are crucial in various scientific fields, including catalysis, drug delivery, adsorption, sensing, CO₂ sequestration, and separation technologies, owing to their material properties, such as a high surface area-to-volume ratio, tunable porosity, ease of...
Geological carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) sequestration in deep saline aquifers is a promising strategy for mitigating the impacts of anthropogenic CO$_2$ emissions on global climate change \cite{Huppert2014,Sahu_Neufeld_2023}. The effectiveness of CO$_2$ sequestration relies on efficient mixing of CO$_2$ with resident brine, which can be investigated through the study of gravity-driven flow or...
Physicochemical interactions between CO2 and crude oil induce the deposition or blockage of heavy components. The integration of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and theoretical calculations was employed to elucidate the pore-scale mass transfer mechanisms of CO2-heavy component interactions and quantify their impacts on flow. The results indicate that the interaction between CO2 and heavy...
Acoustic velocities of reservoir rocks are dependent on in-situ stresses and pore pressures. However, loading or unloading stages may also influence acoustic velocities in distinct ways (Wang and Wang, 2015). An important application of understanding the sensitivity to effective pressure for velocity is in modeling 4D response, which impacts oil and gas exploration (Cruz et al., 2021) and CO2...
Ammonia is a promising fuel for zero-carbon energy storage, transport, and conversion. However, its application in combustion systems is challenging due to high NO$_x$ emissions and low flame stability. Both challenges are addressed here by utilizing combustion within porous inert media (PIM) to stabilize the flame and by employing a distributed, non-premixed combustion mode to reduce NO$_x$...
Evaporation droplet is a complex process influenced by multiple factors, including temperature, airflow, and the presence of surface-active agents. While each of these parameters has been studied in isolation, their combined influence on evaporation behavior remains poorly understood. Surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) significantly reduce liquid surface tension and alter...
Urban expansion has intensified the need for underground transportation infrastructure, yet tunneling activities often induces ground settlement and groundwater drawdown. In densely built environments, these processes pose substantial risks to surface and subsurface structures, highlighting the need for advanced computational models to better diagnose and predict ground responses. This study...
Aluminium (Al) is a common constituent in many consumer products, from food and drinks to hygiene products and medicines. Consequently, it is present in many of our most basic daily necessities. Al tends to primarily accumulate in bone tissue, however, there is a knowledge gap regarding its effects during the bone formation period. According to Marques et al. (2022), Al intake during the...
Porous materials such as felts and foams made of refractory ceramics (Al₂O₃, SiO₂, ZrO₂) offer excellent thermal performance for high-temperature applications, including insulation, atmospheric re-entry shields, heat exchangers, and solar absorbers. To predict their thermal behavior, transient heat transfer must be modeled by coupling conduction and radiation across all material constituents....
We investigated the nonlinear effects of gravity-driven fluid flow through a two-dimensional, moderately low-porosity, packed bed of stubby stone grains in Darcy, and post Darcy regimes. We focused on preferential channel formation, tortuosity, spatial distribution of kinetic energy, and vortex formation. We show that nonlinear effects dominate at relatively high Reynolds numbers, even though...
Cementation is a fundamental diagenetic process that transforms loose sediments into consolidated geomaterials through the precipitation of secondary minerals, which coerce particles together (Attewell & Farmer, 2012). While natural cementation evolves over geological timescales in sediments, comparable bonding effects are engineered in the infrastructure sector. These effects are...
Exploration of lacustrine shale oil has emerged as a crucial frontier in global energy security, particularly within the Junggar Basin of China. The Permian Fengcheng Formation in the Mahu Sag, a world-class alkaline lacustrine shale oil reservoir, serves as a significant geological analog to the Eocene Green River Formation in the United States. However, the development of this resource is...
The Digital Porous Media Portal (DPMP) [1], formerly the Digital Rocks Portal, has long served as a community resource for curated imaging datasets, experimental measurements, and simulations of subsurface porous media. To better support FAIR data principles and promote data reuse, the portal has undergone a major redesign built on the Core Portal Experience at the Texas Advanced Computing...
To investigate the fluid imbibition behavior in the micro-nanopores of shale reservoirs, a comprehensive dynamic model is established based on the capillary tube approach, incorporating the effects of capillary force, displacement pressure, oil phase buoyancy, viscous resistance, and gravity. By introducing tortuosity to characterize pore path complexity and employing the Lambert W function,...
The southern Mediterranean region is experiencing increasing water stress as a result of climate change. In this context, the present project was conducted to promote the valorization and safe reuse of treated wastewater. This project focused on the development of an integrated tertiary wastewater treatment process, combining filtration through hematite-coated sand with UV-C radiation...
Several high temperature food processing and safety applications involve the movement of fluids through a soft material. For example, during baking vapors are formed, which cause swelling and shrinkage of the porous matrix. Vapor-air mixture and CO2 formed due to leavening, result in texturization of the baked products such as cookies and crackers. In low moisture foods, antimicrobial gases...
In this work, the microscopic characterization of sandstones from Morro Pelado, the upper member of the Rio do Rasto Formation (Paraná Basin, Brazil), is presented. The depositional and petrophysical characteristics of sandstones from eolian, fluvial, and floodplain environments were analyzed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the variability in pore systems. To achieve this,...
Capillary trapping and hydrogen recovery efficiency in underground hydrogen storage (UHS) systems are governed not only by fluid properties and wettability but also by the detailed geometry of pore spaces. We hypothesise that the onset of capillary entry pressure is controlled by a critical pore diameter—referred to as the effective pore throat—below which interfacial forces increase sharply...
Salt precipitation during geological carbon storage in saline aquifers significantly jeopardizes long-term storage efficiency and security. This study investigates the impact of porous media disorder on salt precipitation mechanisms during CO₂ injection by integrating pore-scale numerical simulations with microfluidic experiments. By analyzing varying initial brine salinities and injection...
Accurate modeling of mineral dissolution plays a key role in many geochemical processes. Previous studies have demonstrated the need for parameterizing the intrinsic surface reactivity in reactive-transport models (Agrawal et al., 2021). Recent surface nanotopographic parameterization methods are based on the nanoroughness of the surface (Yuan et al., 2021) and the surface slope (Karimzadeh...
Conventional methods of desalination work mostly on reverse osmosis and thermal processes. In a traditional reverse osmosis process, separation between water and salt is accomplished through the use of semi-permeable membranes with nanometer-sized pores. Even though this provides high selectivity coefficients, it can be considered a disadvantage in terms of increased susceptibility to membrane...
Highly weathered tropical soils exhibit low retention of basic cations (Ca2⁺, Mg2⁺, K⁺), reduced effective charge balance, toxicity due to exchangeable Al, and strong dependence on imported chemical fertilizers. Soil remineralizers derived from quartz and agate mining (containing secondary minerals) < 2 mm particle size, after undergoing mechanical grinding, transform an environmental...
Understanding the evolution of nanometer-scale pore networks within shale matrices during gas production is crucial for predicting long-term production behaviors. However, the timescales associated with matrix restructuring often exceed the capabilities of classical molecular dynamics simulations. To address this limitation, we employ Metadynamics simulation, an enhanced sampling technique, in...
This study aims to investigate the behavior of microbial communities under flow conditions in porous, non-homogeneous 3D environments. Indeed, the majority of microbial communities are known to develop in microstructures, such as in soil or lung pores, and are subject to large variations in the concentrations of dissolved elements (O₂, nutrients, etc.). The objective of this study is then to...
This work focuses on single phase compressible gas flow in porous media, especially hydrogen H2 or other gases like air. It includes a comprehensive literature review on analytical approaches to gas flow, Klinkenberg effect, and other effects like gravitational acceleration (super-gravity cases).
The review investigates previous findings for ideal gas flow under isothermal conditions under...
Wettability is crucial for the simulation of multiphase flow problems such as carbon dioxide storage and shale gas production. Previous studies suggest that a nanometre-scale wetting film can exist in the three-phase contact region and its stability is influenced by surface forces. The presence of the wetting film can further affect the apparent contact angle. DLVO theory has been widely...
The transition to intermittent renewable energy sources requires large-scale energy storage to balance supply and demand. Geological hydrogen storage is considered a promising solution; however, large-scale underground hydrogen storage in porous media remains largely untested and associated with scientific challenges, particularly in predicting hydrogen flow and multiphase processes in porous...
Geological storage of CO2 requires monitoring techniques capable of detecting and char-
acterising potential surface leakage. This study evaluates the reliability of carbon isotopic
composition (δ13C) as a leakage indicator using mobile wavelength-scanned cavity ring-
down spectroscopy (WS-CRDS) data collected at the Salt Wash fault system, Utah, an
established natural analogue for...
Understanding pore-scale fluid dynamics is fundamental to optimising CO₂ and hydrogen geological storage strategies. Here, we present a comprehensive pore-scale investigation of reactive and non-reactive multiphase flow dynamics using 4D synchrotron X-ray imaging coupled with high-resolution microscale core-flooding experiments, enabling direct, time-resolved visualization of fluid...
Miscible viscous fingering in porous media is strongly influenced by permeability heterogeneity, yet most existing studies assume homogeneous permeability. In practical subsurface applications, injection is inherently time dependent, motivating a systematic assessment of how temporal forcing interacts with geological heterogeneity. In this work, we investigate miscible fingering in porous...
Hydrogen is widely recognised as a cornerstone of global decarbonisation and a critical component of the pathway to net-zero emissions. By enabling the conversion of renewable electricity into chemical energy, a process known as Power-to-X, it offers a robust solution to the temporal and spatial mismatches in renewable generation, effectively tackling the intermittency of wind and solar power....
Gas hydrates are crystalline solid compounds made up of cages of water molecules, within which gas molecules are trapped. Their formation generally requires low temperatures and high pressures. These conditions can be encountered, in particular, during the injection of gas for storage purposes into depleted oil reservoirs, or during the rise of gas bubbles from accidental leaks of stored gas...
The water-sensitive effects of fine conglomerate and pebbled coarse sandstone reservoirs in the Lower Triassic Baikouquan Formation in Mahu Sag in the Junggar Basin are evaluated, and the main controlling factors and patterns are analyzed. Based on basic physical property tests, rock and ore composition analysis, pore structure analysis, and water-sensitivity experiments, the water-sensitivity...
China’s continental shale oil reservoirs, characterized by low-medium maturity, poor heavy oil mobility, and unconverted organic matter, pose significant challenges for conventional development via horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. To address this, this research introduces a novel multiphase multicomponent thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) coupling numerical model,...
The long-term creep behavior of the surrounding rock of salt cavern energy storage caverns directly impacts their effective storage capacity and service life. However, existing numerical simulation methods suffer from low computational efficiency for creep displacement, while traditional analytical models lack sufficient consideration for the geometric irregularity of the cavern, resulting in...
In this work, we introduce a new locally conservative, low-order $\mathbb{P}_1\times \mathbb{P}_0$ stabilized finite element method for the Brinkman problem. The approach relies on unusual stabilizing terms (Barrenechea and Valentin, 2002), combined with additional pressure jump stabilization on mesh edges. Both stabilization mechanisms are designed to handle highly contrasting permeability...
We consider periodic injection and extraction of a buoyant fluid into and, from a cone-shaped geological structure initially fully saturated with another fluid of different properties. To our knowledge, such geometry has not been analytically investigated before in a manner that reduces the problem from three dimensions to an effective one-dimensional problem while preserving the essential...
Wettability of gas diffusion layers (GDLs) plays a key role in liquid water transport and water management in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), yet its experimental determination remains challenging due to the complex, fibrous pore structure of these materials.1,2 Heterogeneous surface chemistry, comprising bare carbon and hydrophobically treated regions, combined with an anisotropic...
Underground hydrogen storage (UHS) in geological formations is expected to play a critical role as a net-zero energy strategy in the coming decades as the global energy mix shifts toward cleaner, renewable resources. A thorough understanding of the interactions between hydrogen and fluids in subsurface formations is essential for industrial-scale storage. Specifically, the interfacial tension...
In acid fracturing of carbonate geothermal reservoirs, high temperatures result in rapid acid-rock reaction rates and short effective acid migration distances. Pre-injection of cold water can lower the temperature at the fracture surface and delay the reaction. However, the numerical solution of the multi-field coupling of thermal-flow-chemical-mechanical interactions between the fracture and...
Nuclear energy remains strategic for the decarbonisation of the energy sector. However, despite its high efficiency in producing low-carbon electricity, the radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants requires strict long-term disposal solutions. Deep geological disposal in expansive clayey host rocks is widely envisaged, as clay acts as a natural barrier capable of delaying and...
Accurate estimation of the pore structure of fine-grained (clay mineral-rich) soils is a challenging task, as these soils exhibit complex pore morphologies, strong heterogeneity, and a non-granular fabric, distinguishing them from coarse-grained soils such as sand. Therefore, to study its hydraulic characteristics, such as permeability and water retention behaviour, we need an accurate and...
Reliable prediction of CO$_2$ trapping in subsurface formations requires an improved understanding of how pore structure governs multiphase flow irreversibility at the core scale. While pore connectivity is widely recognized as a key controlling factor, experimental evidence linking connectivity to residual CO$_2$ trapping under controlled flow conditions remains limited. This study...
As hydrogen becomes increasingly central to the energy transition, rock salt—with its exceptional sealing capacity and operational safety—has emerged as one of the most promising media for underground hydrogen storage. Reliable quantification of gas transport in rock salt is essential for the safe design and performance assessment of subsurface hydrogen storage caverns. Using an...
Subsurface stress evolution governs fluid storage and transport in geological porous media, yet conventional bulk measurements fail to resolve the pore-scale damage mechanisms that ultimately control permeability evolution. This limitation is particularly critical in carbonate reservoirs, where complex pore architectures and diagenetic heterogeneity complicate predictions of flow behavior. To...
Geothermal energy is a key option for decarbonizing heating and cooling in the energy transition. Forecasting geothermal production has inherent uncertainty due to the heterogeneity of geological formations that host the geothermal resource and the limited data available to characterize and quantify these heterogeneities. This uncertainty leads to operational risks such as early thermal...
Bioclogging alters permeability through the coupled evolution of pore-scale hydrodynamics, pore structure, and biofilm morphology during biofilm growth. Many pore-scale models treat biofilms as impermeable solids and neglect shear-driven detachment under spatially non-uniform flow, which can bias predictions of residual permeability in heterogeneous porous media. Here we develop an improved...
Pre-salt layer carbonates are among the primary exploration targets in Brazil. However, their microstructural complexity presents significant challenges for geophysical characterization (Vasquez et al., 2019).
Elastic anisotropy is a critical property that influences the interpretation of seismic velocity, stress distribution, and fracture behavior. In pre-salt carbonates, complex pore...
The carbon geological storage (CGS) remains one of the most valuable practical means for the mitigation of global warming problem. Since the beginning of the pioneering industrial pilot on CO2 storage in deep saline aquifer (DNA, [1]), the gas injection and related trapping mechanisms have become one of principal targets of the related research fields [2].
The estimation of CGS-related...
Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations resulting from industrial activity and fossil fuel consumption present an urgent challenge for climate mitigation, underscoring the need for efficient capture technologies based on advanced porous materials. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs), characterized by their highly ordered pore networks, large internal surface areas, and tunable chemical...
Antiperovskite-type Cu3XN (X = Ni, Pd, Pt) materials have recently emerged as promising candidates for catalytic CO2 electroreduction due to their metallic conductivity, tunable surface chemistry, and structural flexibility. In this work, we employ first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations to investigate the electronic and catalytic properties of Cu3XN systems with a focus...
We study steady Stokes flow through a two-dimensional packing of circular beads. We build a minimal statistical model for the flow-rate distribution based on a mapping of the pore space to a network of Poiseuille-flow tubes. We show that the flow rates at the pores follow a Gamma distribution, and that the flow-rate distribution at throats is fully determined in terms of it. The predictions...
To contribute to the ecological transition, increasing the use of environmentally friendly materials derived from renewable and non-polluting resources is necessary. In particular, bio-based materials such as paper appear to be a relevant alternative to plastic.
In addition to be a multi-scale porous material [1], with pore sizes ranging from several tens of micrometers between fibers down...
We analyze the progression of gravity currents in heterogeneous media under different kinds of heterogeneity and with different degrees of anisotropy, more precisely, multiGaussian realizations, non-Gaussian realizations and sedimentary-like realizations. The analysis focuses on the time evolution of the free surface as a dense liquid enters a reservoir filled with a much lighert liquid....
The increasing accumulation of microplastics (MPs) in soils has raised concern about their potential to alter subsurface transport processes [1,2] that regulate nutrient and contaminant mobility. This study investigates how microplastic contamination influences solute transport dynamics in sandy soils by integrating laboratory soil column experiments with pore-scale microfluidic observations...
Matrix acid stimulation in carbonate rocks is governed by coupled acid–rock interactions that control reactive transport, wormhole formation, and the enhancement of pore connectivity, all strongly influenced by pore-scale heterogeneity. Mineralogical variability, particularly between calcite and dolomite, plays a key role due to their distinct dissolution kinetics, directly impacting reactive...
Local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE) can play a crucial role in porous-media heat transfer, particularly in applications such as transpiration cooling [1], fuel cells [3] , and geothermal systems [2]. Hereby, the commonly used assumption of instantaneous heat transfer between phases (local thermal equilibrium, LTE) might break down under strong temperature gradients or pronounced contrasts in...
Electrochemical systems underpin a wide range of modern energy technologies by enabling efficient energy conversion and storage. Interfacial electrochemical processes can be broadly classified into charge-transfer reactions and charge-accumulation phenomena. Charge-transfer processes, governed by electrocatalysts, dictate reaction kinetics in energy-related devices, whereas charge accumulation...
This paper investigates the application of machine learning (ML) to model and predict drilling mud loss in subsurface formations with conductive natural fractures. Mud loss during drilling is a complex and costly issue that disrupts operations and increases non-productive time. The goal of this study is to develop an ML-based tool that leverages type-curves and physics-informed models to...
Quantifying pore-scale fluid displacement mechanisms in CO2/brine system is critical for predicting multiphase flow behavior and trapping efficiency during geological CO2 storage. In this study, we image steady-state two-phase flow of brine and CO2 in a water-wet Bentheimer sandstone under reservoir conditions. An experimental approach utilizing differential X-ray imaging was developed to...
Microplastics are increasingly prevalent contaminants in soils and have been identified as potential vectors for nutrients, heavy metals and pathogens. Their interactions with soil structure, salinity, and microbial activity may significantly influence contaminant transport. This study investigates the combined effects of microplastic and sodium concentrations on chloride leaching in soil...
Microplastics are increasingly present in soils, including saline soils, due to agricultural practices, wastewater reuse, and improper waste disposal. While evaporation and salt crystallization in saline soils have been extensively studied (1,2,3), how microplastic contamination alters these processes in saline soils remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate the combined effects of...
Objectives/Scope
Understanding the fundamental mechanisms of fracture-matrix fluid exchange is crucial for the modeling of fractured reservoirs. Traditionally, high-resolution simulations for flow in fractures often neglect the effect of matrix contribution on the fracture hydraulic behavior. In this study, we develop a multi-scale approach to capture the matrix-fracture leakage interaction...
Geological storage of CO₂ in deep saline aquifers is a widely recognized strategy for mitigating atmospheric CO₂ emissions. When dry CO₂ is injected, water vaporizes into the CO₂ stream, increasing brine salinity. Once the solubility limit is exceeded, halite precipitates -primarily near the wellbore-reducing porosity and permeability, which can impair injectivity and compromise storage...
Colloid-facilitated transport is a key process in the migration of radionuclides through the geosphere and is highly relevant for the long term safety assessment of deep geological repositories. COFRAME-2 is a new computational module for colloid-facilitated radionuclide transport in fractured–porous systems, developed for application in repository safety analyses.
The physical system is...
A conservative tracer test was conducted at the Gonghe Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) demonstration site to evaluate inter-well connectivity in a hydraulically stimulated granitic reservoir. Breakthrough curve analysis reveals two preferential transport pathways between the injection well GH02 and the production well GH01, with strongly contrasting parameter identifiability caused by...
Abstract
Multiphase Flow of NAPL in Homogeneous Aquifer Materials Systems at Oil Spill Sites
Rabindra Maity1,2, Dr. Bhawana Pathak1, Dr. Pankaj Kumar Gupta2,3
1School of Environment and Sustainable Development, Central University of Gujarat, 382030, India.
2Centre for Rural Development and Technology (CRDT), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Hauz Khas,...
Thermal energy storage (TES) in packed beds is a promising approach for improving the efficiency and flexibility of energy systems. Its performance strongly depends on local heat transfer between gas and solid phases. A pore-scale numerical framework is developed to determine the volumetric heat transfer coefficient (hv) in randomly packed beds and to quantify the effects of gravity and flow...
The study of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media remains a topic of major scientific and technological relevance, with applications in reservoir engineering, hydrogeology, and enhanced oil recovery. Since the 1930s, several models have been proposed to describe this phenomenon at the pore scale, yet significant challenges persist due to the complexity introduced by mobile interfaces and...
Leaks from underground storage tanks containing petroleum products represent a major environmental concern due to the potential contamination of soils and groundwater. Early detection of such leaks is essential to limit the spread of pollutants and reduce remediation costs. Conventional monitoring strategies rely primarily on groundwater sampling; however, these methods often detect...
The Cahn-Hilliard equation is a classical phase-field model that describes phase separation and coarsening in binary mixtures. It captures the fundamental physics of mass conservation and free energy minimization, with wide-ranging applications in materials science, soft matter physics, and condensed matter systems such as alloys, polymer blends, and binary fluids. Due to its stiffness,...
Zeolites are crystalline aluminosilicates with high porosity and tunable surface properties, widely used as catalysts, adsorbents, and ion exchangers. Their conventional hydrothermal synthesis, however, is energy-intensive and poorly suited for real-time monitoring of the gel-to-crystal transition [1]. In this work, we introduce an alternative, low-energy approach for zeolite synthesis based...
Swelling is a fundamental process in natural systems and industrial applications, characterized by the volumetric expansion of materials due to the absorption of fluid. Swelling in polymeric gels, a classical problem in soft matter,$^{1,2}$ has received renewed attention in the case of hydrogels.$^{3,4}$ Hydrogels are three-dimensional (3D) networks of hydrophilic polymer chains that can...
Confinement effects cause fluid phase behaviors in nanoporous media to deviate from that under bulk conditions, while the presence of water further exacerbates the complexity. This study employs Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the vapor-liquid equilibrium of pure C3H8 and the CO2/C3H8 binary system confined in quartz nanopores, with a focus on the influence of water-bearing conditions....
Organic-clay composite nanoporous media play critical roles in unconventional oil/gas extraction, geological carbon sequestration, underground hydrogen storage, and nuclear waste disposal. However, the changing patterns of the pore structure and fluid distribution of organic clay complexes under the influence of organic-inorganic composition, fluid content, and pressure remain unclear. In this...
We analyze solute transport in partially saturated porous media in the presence of adsorption and desorption processes. Starting from experimental images of the water-air distribution in a millifluidic device [1], we perform pore-scale simulations of water-phase flow and solute transport, accounting for adsorption and desorption at grain surfaces. We explore a range of transport regimes...
With the exploitation of gas in the naturally fractured gas reservoir driven by aquifers, the natural gas stored within matrix pore generally tends to be trapped by invaded water in the neighboring fractures and relaxed by injected nitrogen gas. Understanding gas/water flow in multiscale porous media is challenging due to the presence of a wide range of pore sizes. In this paper, four rock...
Carbon mineralization, the process during which injected $CO_2$ reacts with the cations released from the dissolution of silicate minerals to form carbonate minerals (e.g. $CaCO_3$), is considered a promising way to permanently store $CO_2$ in rocks (Oelkers et al. 2026, Menefee et al. 2018). Basalt is a widely used host rock for carbon mineralization because it is rich in basic silicate...
Natural gas hydrates occur as clusters formed within the pores of coarse-grained sedimentary rocks or as lenses interbedded with low-permeability fine-grained and clayey sediments. According to geological exploration conducted as part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), gas hydrates are widespread throughout the world's oceans where a seafloor source of methane exists and...
Liquid water flows by gravity and capillarity in snow, drastically modifying its properties. Unlike dry snow, observing wet snow remains a challenge and data from 3D pore-scale imaging are scarce. This limitation hampers our understanding of the water, heat, and vapor transport processes in wet snow, as well as their modeling.
Here, we explore a simulation-based approach, namely a pore...
The aim of this work is to accurately reproduce hydraulic interactions between ocean waves and watersheds over large spatial and temporal scales (from meters to kilometers and from minutes to days). This modeling is essential for reliable numerical simulations that can be used for regional forecasts in the context of climate change, particularly regarding water resources and morphodynamic...
Flow and chemical reactions on rough fracture surfaces can gradually change the aperture and permeability of a fracture, and hence in a long run, influence the productivity of a fractured geothermal reservoir. Most existing models, however, still assume smooth fractures and isothermal chemistry. In this work, a thermo-hydro-chemical (THC) model was developed for a single rough fracture, where...
This work applies the pore network modeling methodology, a widely used technique for simulating multiphase flow in porous media. A case study was designed to estimate key petrophysical parameters such as porosity, permeability, relative permeabilities, tortuosity, capillary pressure, and effective diffusivity in porous media generated using OpenPNM, based on data obtained from SEM images of...
Reservoir modeling and simulation play a fundamental role throughout the entire reservoir exploitation chain, as they are essential for decision-making, reserve evaluation, and the development of field abandonment plans. One of the most important properties influencing the outcome of a reservoir simulation is relative permeability.
Relative permeability can be obtained through laboratory...
Karstification is a complex process involving coupled physical and chemical mechanisms that can be investigated numerically under different conditions. This work focuses on karstification in porous media, with particular attention to ghost-rock karstification.
The objective of this work is to investigate the sensitivity of karstification to key parameters and to assess their influence on the...
Mechanical deformations of porous and fractured rocks with weak intergranular cementation involve significantly different varieties of nonlinear stress–strain behaviors due to the presence of compliant microstructures such as cracks and grain contacts, generally including nonlinear elastic (due to crack closure and intergranular compaction), hyperelastic (due to stress accumulation), and...
Spontaneous nanoparticle adsorption from suspension has emerged as a promising approach for tuning wettability, particularly in natural systems where direct manipulation of surface textures is challenging. However, whether and how such spontaneous adsorption on solid surfaces enables robust modification of wettability remains debated. Here, we report a series of studies on nanoparticle-induced...
Carbon mineralization in porous basalt rocks offers promising long-term solutions for CO2 sequestration [1]. Current approaches involve the injection of a CO2-enriched acidic brine into the subsurface. The reactivity of the host rock is thereby leveraged as cations get progressively dissolved and subsequently precipitate as carbonate minerals further along the flow pathway, permanently...
We use theory and experiment to elucidate how acoustic and ultrasonic waves drive fluid flow and mass advection in porous media. This work provides insight into acoustically induced transport relevant to subsurface fluid motion during seismic events and establishes a framework for integrating acoustic actuation into point-of-care diagnostic platforms.
Experimentally, we demonstrate...
This study extends the Algebraic Dynamic Multilevel (ADM) method for simulating contaminant transport in vadose zones. Building upon a fully implicit scheme that couples variably saturated flow and contaminant transport, the developed ADM framework effectively predicts contaminant plume migration across both unsaturated and saturated media under heterogeneous conditions. During the simulation,...
Carbon capture and storage involves injecting CO$_2$ underground while keeping the reservoir pressure within a safe limit. In large, connected aquifers pressure changes can move far from an injection well, so separate injection sites can influence each other through regional pressure buildup. At the same time, each site is controlled by local details such as near-well pressure gradients and...
Groundwater is a critical resource for agricultural irrigation and domestic water supply in the densely populated Halda watershed of southeastern Bangladesh. Increasing demand and potential climate variability necessitate a comprehensive assessment of this vital resource. This study aims to assess the temporal dynamics of groundwater storage and spatially delineate recharge potential zones...
Electrochemical reduction of CO2 (CO2RR) offers a sustainable approach to simultaneously lower atmospheric CO2 levels and convert it into useful chemicals. While noble metals are currently the most effective catalysts for this process, their expense limits large-scale use, driving the search for more affordable alternatives. Transition-metal sites incorporated within metal-organic frameworks...
Naturally occurring, geologically sourced hydrogen has recently emerged as a promising low-carbon energy resource, prompting growing exploration and evaluation efforts across regions including North America, Australia and European Union. Despite this momentum, current cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) assessment approaches rely heavily on retrospective field data, limiting their applicability for...
In response to the urgent need for efficient carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture techniques from industrial processes, membrane-based gas separation has emerged as a promising approach due to its cost-effectiveness, safety, environmental benefits, and energy efficiency. Among the various materials employed, polymeric membranes have attracted considerable attention because of their suitability for...
The CO2-solute dispersion dynamics in multi-scale porous media is critical for various chemical and environmental applications. The fundamental insight into CO2-solute dispersion at pore-scale is in urgent need. To address this gap, we presented a visualization method based on micromodels. We fabricated micromodels that closely match the hydraulic pore diameter distribution, permeability and...
The development of medium to low maturity shale oil resources plays a critical role in alleviating China’s energy supply constraints. In-situ thermal conversion is one of the most promising recovery technologies, in which the design and optimization of heating schemes strongly depend on the thermal conductivity of shale. However, shale exhibits complex pore structures characterized by...
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the primary driver of climate change and ocean acidification, necessitating scalable and secure carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) approaches. CO₂ sequestration in marine sediments in the form of gas hydrates represents a promising long-term storage option due to high volumetric capacity and enhanced stability under deep-sea pressure and temperature...
Water-Alternating-Gas (WAG) injection is a critical technique for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS). However, accurate prediction of gas mobility remains a significant challenge due to the complex hysteresis and cycle-dependent nature of the gas relative permeability krg in three-phase flow systems. Conventional empirical models often fail to...
Thermally induced Marangoni stresses play a crucial role in transport phenomena at fluid interfaces in confined microfluidic environments, yet their interplay with evaporation, geometry, and interfacial dynamics remains incompletely understood. In this work, we present an experimental investigation of the thermal Marangoni effect in microcapillaries of varying characteristic sizes fabricated...
Future lunar exploration missions are increasingly targeting the lunar poles, where water ice is believed to exist within permanently shadowed regions. Understanding the mechanical properties of icy lunar regolith under in-situ conditions is critical for the design of rovers, drilling mechanisms, and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) systems. However, the unique combination of low gravity,...
In this poster, we present FracLab, a robust and powerful 3D discrete fracture network (DFN) generator designed for conditional simulation of fracture networks and numerical simulation of coupled processes. Currently, FracLab has served as the foundational geometric modeling tool for the research team focusing on various coupled processes in 3D fractured rocks.
FracLab incorporates optimized...
In the context of energy- and climate-related challenges involving porous materials, understanding water dynamics across different states of porous matter, from reactive mineral solutions to consolidated colloidal gels, is essential for describing transport, aging, and stability in silicate-based and bio-inspired systems. However, capturing these processes under non-equilibrium conditions and...
Digital rock physics (DRP) is widely used to predict petrophysical properties from pore-scale images, yet its application to low-porosity crystalline rocks remains limited. In granites, low connected porosity, complex mineral intergrowth, fine inclusions, and alteration textures challenge conventional grayscale-based phase identification (segmentation), reducing the reliability of predicted...
Objectives/Scope: This study aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of geothermal energy as a reliable and sustainable energy resource. It examines geothermal sources, utilization pathways, and technological developments, while assessing technical, environmental, and regional considerations to support sustainable geothermal deployment worldwide.
Methods, Procedures, Process: A systematic...
Packed beds are widely employed in chemical and process engineering applications, including separation columns and catalytic reactors, where hydrodynamic behavior and heat transfer performance are often critical design considerations. Traditional random packings offer simplicity and
robustness but typically incur relatively high pressure drops, while structured packings can reduce hydraulic...
Deep enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) in crystalline rock frequently exhibit induced seismicity during hydraulic stimulation, yet post stimulation tests might show reversible permeability enhancement and inadequate connectivity for sustainable circulation, as reported for the 6 km–deep St1 Deep Heat project in Espoo, Finland. This contrast between strong seismic response and poor long term...
Engineered nanoparticles (ENPs), defined by their nanoscale size (<100 nm) and high specific surface area, exhibit unique physicochemical properties that enable widespread applications in fields such as biomedicine, catalysis, electronics, energy, and environmental technologies (Nowack & Bucheli, 2007). However, their increasing release into the environment raises concerns regarding their...
Fractured geomaterials exhibit strongly anisotropic mechanical behaviour and complicated hydro-mechanical (HM) interactions driven by the activation of pre-existing structures such as weakness planes, faults, and fractures in clay-rich materials and the associated permeability evolution. The potential of fault activation in low-permeable clay shales is a major concern for a wide range of...
Small-scale infiltration dynamics can dictate larger-scale solute transport behavior in variably saturated porous media. Laboratory flow cell experiments show that short-term infiltration events (centimeter–hour scales) strongly influence transport over larger spatial and temporal scales (decimeter–day scales). In this case, lower influx rates lead to earlier breakthrough and sharper...
Deep glutenite reservoirs are characterized by strong heterogeneity, complex rock mechanical properties, and high uncertainty in natural fracture development. The conventional equal-spacing cluster placement strategy fails to accommodate reservoir heterogeneity, often leading to imbalanced fracture network propagation and substantially limiting the effectiveness of volume fracturing. To...
Digital rock physics has become an essential tool for predicting petrophysical properties in complex reservoir rocks where laboratory measurements are difficult, expensive, or scale-limited. Carbonates, tight sandstones, and other heterogeneous formations pose a particular challenge due to pore systems spanning multiple length scales that cannot be fully resolved by a single imaging modality....
Coupled free-flow and porous-media flow phenomena are ubiquitous in nature. While research on single-phase coupling has reached a mature stage, studies on two-phase coupling remain insufficient, and the underlying coupling mechanisms are not yet well clarified. To elucidate the coupling mechanism between two-phase porous-media flow and free flow, this paper starts from the microscopic pore...
Abstract
Foam-injection has been a highly effective Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method for decades (Rossen, 1996; Lake et al., 2014). In addition to its applications in conventional oil and gas industry, injecting foam in porous media also greatly benefits various environmental applications such as soil remediation, ground water cleaning, and CO2 sequestration (Rossen et al., 2022) etc....
In this study, we conducted a series of microfluidic experiments using Stereolithography (SLA) 3D-printed chips designed to replicate the pore geometry of vesicular basalts and investigate a scaled version of in-situ supercritical CO₂ (scCO₂)/water/basalt multiphase flow dynamics under room conditions and a large parameter space. Multiple field-scale pilot projects, such as those conducted at...
Condensate blockage in gas reservoirs restricts the ultimate recovery factor, and the microscopic phase behavior of condensate gas represents a fundamental scientific challenge for preventing and mitigating condensate blockage damage. Currently, the molecular-scale mechanisms governing condensate gas depletion phase transitions and CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) remain poorly...
Miscible viscous fingering is a hydrodynamic instability that occurs when a less viscous fluid displaces a more viscous, fully miscible fluid, giving rise to complex interfacial patterns that strongly influence mixing and transport in confined flows and porous media. Laboratory experiments are performed in a Hele–Shaw cell under controlled conditions, where a low-viscosity fluid (water)...
During underground hydrogen storage in aquifers and depleted gas fields, hydrogen commonly coexists with methane used as a cushion gas. In this context, it is important to understand how the distribution of the gas phase composition evolves over time in the reservoir, as this affects the recovery efficiency of the stored hydrogen. In these systems, the methane and hydrogen trapped in the...
Keywords: Multiphase porous bio-composite, green housing, thermo-mechanical properties, X-ray tomography, FEM
Bio-based porous materials are gaining importance in construction sector owing to their ecological benefits, sustainability, energy performance and availability. The lightness and internal macro-porosity of biobased concretes – around 20% – offer them optimum thermo-mechanical...
This seminar deals with two so far independent topics:
A nested Newton solver for multiphase multicomponent flow in porous media, and the generation of highly anisotropic grids for fracture representation.
In order to study the efficiency of the various forms of trapping including mineral
trapping scenarios for CO2 storage behavior in deep layers of porous media, highly
nonlinear coupled...
Unintentional industrial releases of light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) have led to contamination of soils and aquifers, posing serious risks to ecological sustainability and public health. Conventional remediation techniques, such as pump-and-treat systems, are commonly applied to address this problem. However, they often exhibit limited efficiency, as substantial fractions of residual...
Pore-scale transport analysis relies on high-resolution three-dimensional X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) images that accurately resolve pore geometry and connectivity. In practice, voxel resolutions sufficient for pore-scale characterization are typically achievable only for millimeter-scale subcores with a limited field of view (FOV), whereas imaging centimeter-scale samples...
Liquefaction of sands is a strongly multi-scale phenomenon governed by complex interactions between grain rearrangement, pore fluid flow, and phase transitions between solid-like and fluid-like states. Capturing these processes in a unified and thermodynamically consistent framework remains a major challenge for predictive modeling. In this contribution, we present two complementary...
Physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) is a new approach designed to reduce the dependence of neural network models on data. This technique shows strong potential for groundwater applications, where data are often scarce. PINNs can be used for forward modeling, surrogate modeling, uncertainty quantification, and inverse modeling. For this reason, the groundwater-related applications of PINNs...
Foam transport in porous media is encountered in Enhanced Oil Recovery and, increasingly, for soil and groundwater remediation, where foam is used for the displacement of pollutants, efficient delivery of reactants, and diversion of groundwater flow to protect water resources. In these applications, foam behavior is strongly influenced by the interplay between gas trapping and foam texture...
During geological carbon sequestration, the interaction between CO2-enriched brine and carbonate formations leads to calcite dissolution, driven by the coupled processes of fluid transport, geochemical reactions, and evolving pore structures. Clarifying how these processes influence the transition of dissolution patterns is important for understanding reactive flow behaviour in subsurface...
Wormhole formation in salt deposits threatens containment integrity in geological disposal facilities (GDF) by creating preferential pathways for radionuclide migration. While continuum models predict invasion patterns, they fail to capture formation timescales due to inadequate representation of pore-scale heterogeneity and pre-existing fractures. Pore-scale reactive transport modelling can...
Subsurface porous media, specifically porous rocks, are important for groundwater remediation and underground storage of CO₂ and H₂. Fluid displacement, mixing, and transport are controlled by pore-scale features such as pore connectivity and heterogeneity, yet remain challenging to characterize at field-relevant scales [1]. Pore-scale simulations can resolve these processes, but they are...
Accurate prediction of gas production under fluctuating operating conditions remains a key challenge.
In this work, a physically inspired Capacitance–Resistance Model (CRM) was improved by integrating a pseudo-pressure term to better reflect pressure-driven dynamics.
The coupled framework retains the smooth and interpretable structure of conventional CRM while introducing a pressure-based...
The process of subsurface carbon mineralization creates enduring storage for carbon dioxide (CO₂) which serves as a fundamental element of carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) systems. The research evaluates current physical and mathematical models which describe carbon mineralization processes that occur in porous and fractured media through a review of laboratory results and field...
This study investigates Laponite® suspensions as injectable, self-organizing flow barriers for subsurface hydrogen storage by linking rheology to pore-scale containment performance. Guided by the phase diagram, 2–3 wt% suspensions were prepared and rheologically characterized, revealing low initial viscosity followed by time-dependent increases in viscosity and elasticity; 3 wt% suspensions...
The increasing demand for construction materials places growing pressure on natural resources, prompting the search for sustainable alternatives such as dredged sediments [1, 2]. However, the reuse of these materials is strongly constrained by their organic matter (OM) content, which significantly affects their mechanical behaviour and long-term stability [3, 4, 5]. In this context,...
In this communication, we report experimental measurements of conservative solute transport beneath the water–air interface in porous media, with applications to modeling nutrient and contaminant transport in the vadose zone. Using an index-matched porous bed subjected to periodic water table variations, we quantify the transverse spreading of a fluorescent dye and determine the dispersivity...
Understanding of wettability effects on multiphase displacement in porous media is very helpful for design and optimization of engineering applications. Microfluidic experiments on chips provide a powerful visible test platform to reveal mechanisms of such effects, however some laboratory tests have reported inconsistent wettability effects on displacement with the previous field or core...
Accurate morphological characterization of electrospun fiber mats is essential for establishing reliable structure–property relationships. Conventional manual analysis of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images is time-consuming, operator-dependent, and prone to subjective errors. Automated computational approaches offer a consistent and reproducible alternative, yet robust methods capable...
The problem of upscaling in determining the macroscale behaviour of two-phase flow in porous media from pore scale to darcy scale is one of the central problems in our field of research. Simplified models like the capillary fibre bundle model gives some insight into the macroscale behaviour, however it lacks a crucial property of a real porous media, namely mixing. We focus on investigating a...
