Energy is the lifeblood of modern society. Material resources from the Earth underlie our everyday efforts in reliable energy provision and environmental conservation in the form of mineral resources, CO2 storage, and energy storage. Many energy and environmental systems, however, are nanoporous and have incredible degrees of physical and chemical complexity.  These complexities, due to chemical heterogeneity and anomalous behavior under nanoconfinement, greatly impede our understanding and control of natural and engineered processes to leverage the Earth's energy and environmental resources.

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Our lab aims to understand and to develop methods to leverage the Earth's resources.  In pursuit of this goal, we seek to address questions such as: how do fluids, specifically multicomponent, multiphase fluids, behave at the fundamental micro/nanoscopic pore-scale?  How do pore fluids such as brine and CO2 interact with the solid pore surfaces that surround them?  How do mineralogic heterogeneities affect these interactions? And, how can we in turn leverage this basic understanding to develop ways that improve our ability to extract these resources?

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We investigate these questions by combining experimental methods in micro/nanofluidics and materials characterization with theoretical approaches in geochemistry and reactive transport. The research conducted in our lab draws expertise from multiple disciplines, including fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, colloidal chemistry, geochemistry, and micro/nanoengineering.  For more information, please contact us!