Dear InterPore Friends,

A reflection on the past propels us into the future. What can we learn from InterPore2020 as
preparations for InterPore2021 have already begun? Myself, I missed the poster sessions the most,
which I consider a perfect mixture between scientific exchange and personal interaction. Maybe next
time we can swipe through posters (yes, like Tinder). If you like one and click on it, you enter a
virtual room with the poster presenter and perhaps some other interested being. Like in an in-person
conference setting, you can see who’s present in that room before entering (= approaching the
poster). Of course, the presenter should be able to ask you “is it clear?” or “do you have a
question?” and try to pull you into the virtual room… Any app-builder reading this by any chance?

Indeed, today’s Newsletter has the outcome from the InterPore2020 feedback forms. We also feature the
InterPore elections coming up. Furthermore, if you have a colleague who deserves a prize, check out
the InterPore Awards options. And still, the Newsletter has much, much more.

All the best,

Matthijs de Winter
Editor-in-Chief
InterPore News

InterPore Elections

InterPore Elections are coming up, spanning an election period from November 1 to November 30, 2020.
We wish to inform the Society members about the details of the election procedure.

Who will be elected? A new President-Elect, five new Council members and three new members for the
Student Affairs Committee will be elected.

The terms of office of the current InterPore President is due to end on the last day of the InterPore
Annual Meeting – June 4, 2020. As stipulated in the InterPore Bylaws, the current President, Laura
Pyrak-Nolte, will transfer responsibilities to the current President-Elect, Michel Quintard. As
such, a new President-Elect needs to be elected.

In addition, the term of five Council Members will end on the same date, and five Council Members
will be elected to replace the outgoing members.

Who is conducting the elections? The Election Committee, appointed by the current InterPore
leadership, consists of Chair Gabriel Wittum (University of Frankfurt, Germany), Parisa Mirbod
(University of Illinois-Chicago, USA) and Alexei Mailybaev Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e
Aplicada, Brazil). Survey and Ballot Systems is offering a SBS Secure File Portal for our elections
and the InterPore office will be conducting the technical implementation. InterPore, and the
Election Committee in particular, is committed to ensuring a free, fair, and transparent election
process.

How will you vote? All current InterPore members are eligible to vote and will receive an email from
Survey Ballot Systems on November 1 which includes a personalized one-time link to our voting tool.

Who are the candidates? Detailed information on all candidates can be found on our website.

InterPore Online Short Course Registration

Short courses have limited capacity. Click here to register.

SHORT COURSE #1: Multiphase
Flow in Permeable Media: A Pore-Scale Perspective

Instructors: Martin Blunt, Imperial College London, UK
Date: 7-10 December 2020

Registration fee:

Click here
for more information and registration.

SHORT COURSE #2: Multiscale
Modeling and Simulation: Scalable Simulation of Nonlinear Processes in Heterogeneous Fractured
Porous Media

Instructors: Hadi Hajibeygi, TU Delft, The Netherlands
Date: 11, 12, 14 and 15 December 2020

Registration fee:

Click here
for more information and registration.

SHORT COURSE #3: Capillarity
in Porous Media at Different Scales

Instructors: Majid Hassanizadeh, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Date: 11-14 January 2021

Registration fee:

Click here
for more information and registration.

Apply for InterPore
Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lecturer 2021

The Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lecturer Series in 2021 features

The title of the lecture is: Porous Media, Small and Large: From
Atomistic Modeling of Nano-porous Membranes to Modeling of Flow and Transport in Geological
Formations.

An abstract of the talk and a short biography of Prof. Dr. Sahimi can be found on our website.
Apply now to request and host the 2021 InterPore Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lecture at your
institute!

Given the current situation with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Dr. Sahimi will attempt to
travel to your place, but will also be able to present his talk online if needed.

InterPore YouTube Channel

The InterPore
YouTube channel has been updated. Newly added: an InterPore2020 playlist which contains all
of the invited speeches, two of the keynote speeches, the opening and closing ceremonies, and all
four of the awards ceremonies.

Moreover, a new playlist is dedicated to porous media research. This is an excellent opportunity to
promote your work and reach a wider audience by presenting a short video of your research project
and results. One of the aims is to establish this channel as a large resource center for porous
media scientists by providing a large collection of short videos showcasing state-of-the-art porous
media research. Such a channel can provide InterPore members and beyond with inspiration and
insightful ideas for collaboration. If you would like to upload your research videos to the
InterPore channel, please send them to Amy Spang.

Here are two sample videos recently uploaded to our channel:

Coupled wettability and heterogeneity effects
controlling flow in porous media

Interface dynamics in a converging-diverging
capillary under different wettability conditions

InterPore2020 feedback

After InterPore2020 had finished, participants were asked about their experience. It
was the first-ever online InterPore conference, due of course to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to affect international conferences in the years to
come to some extent. Hence, it is vital that lessons are learned from InterPore2020. What should be
improved and what is for keeps? Trends and observations from your responses are listed below, but
first a few numbers.

During the conference, we gathered the following statistics:

Agenda
19,513 Total Session Views
576 Personal Agendas were created by
participants

Networking
13,151 Profile Views
530 Private 1-on-1 meetings were created
between participants
45 Group Meet-Ups were created with a total of 415 participants
35
Job Openings Posted by 13 Companies

Scientific Program
The scientific program was generally perceived as good –
very good. However, because of scheduling, some had to jump from one Q&A session to another, for
example the two invited talks, which were scheduled in parallel and ought not to have been the case.

Technical Aspects
The Whova-environment ran as an application on mobile
phones/tablets and was accessible from a browser on a regular computer. However, the functionality
was not the same, with the main emphasis towards mobile phone users. This caused confusion. For
example, a clear link between a Q&A session and the talks being discussed in that session was
missing. Another potential source of confusion: Questions could be posted to the Q&A session
chat option as well as to a chat option on the video page.

Overall, no technical glitches are reported, but the implementation of the conference in Whova was
not always intuitive.

General comments
A real major benefit of online conferences is the ability to
watch recorded talks. Quite a large group of participants continued watching talks after the
conference was closed. Even registration occurred after the conference was closed. However, watching
many talks before the conference started was not possible. Effectively, it became almost a two-week
event.

The general response is that the scientific content was very good and there is some room for
improvement for the technical and practical aspects of an online conference.

The call for InterPore award nominations is open nominate a worthy
recipient!

InterPore recognizes researchers for excellence across disciplines and throughout varying career
stages. Please note that the nomination submission deadline for the following InterPore Awards is
November 1st!

Honorary Lifetime
Member Award

Reserved for individuals for individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to porous media
science and technology, who are world renown in the porous media community, and whose contributions
are consistent with the aims and ideals of InterPore.

Kimberly-Clark
Distinguished Lectureship

Awarded to a porous media researcher with a very high international recognition and excellent
presentation skills, working on a broad range of porous media topics.

InterPore
Medal for Porous Media Research (senior)

Awarded to senior researchers in recognition of outstanding research in general porous media, with
emphasis on research conducted over the past 10 years.

InterPore
Award for Porous Media Research (mid-career)

Awarded to mid-career researchers (up to 12 years after PhD) with outstanding research record in
general porous media, with emphasis over the last five years.

PoreLab
Award for Young Researchers

For outstanding contributions in the field of porous media from a fundamental point of view, achieved
within three years after PhD.

Rien
van Genuchten Early-Career Award of Porous Media for a Green World

Awarded to an early-career researcher with the general topic of “porous media research for a green
world” as a main focus. Preferentially intended for young researchers from countries with low- or
middle-income economies as defined by the World Bank.

The nomination deadline for all the aforementioned awards is November 1, 2020. Please click on the
links for specific details for each award, or visit our Honors & Awards
page.

We are happy to invite you to our next Porous Media Tea Time Talks (#PorousMediaTTT) session
at 20 October at 15:00 am CEST local
time on our YouTube
Channel.

The goal of the Porous Media TTT is to act as a complimentary platform to the already very successful
Geoscience and Geoenergy
webinars with the focus placed on young professionals.

We are very much looking forward to seeing you online!

Catherine Spurin (ICL), Kamalijt Singh (HW), Marcel Moura (PoreLab, UiO), Tom Bultreys (UGhent),
Mohammad Nooraiepour (UiO), Maja Ruecker (ICL)

Album of Porous Media Structure and
Dynamics

Archive from Matthijs de Winter

The Album of Porous Media Structure and Dynamics, by Ezequiel Medici & Alejandro Otero
and printed by Springer, is still accepting contributions. The Album will provide a collection of
state-of-the-art visualizations of the different science and engineering aspects of porous media to
serve as a reference for future research and education. This collection of scientific works will
cover experimental and computational visualizations, visualization of new porous materials, and
visualization of transport processes that occur in porous materials as well as in other aspects. The
authors are seeking contributions that illuminate a wide range of science and engineering phenomena
and apply a broad range of visualization techniques, from high-resolution pore morphology to
illustrations of historical observations and use of porous media.

Contributions will be peer-reviewed according to the relevance and innovation of the scientific topic
of the image and the quality of image, including the resolution and coloring. A brief accompanying
text is also required. The Album will be published in two languages: English and Spanish.

For more information and to submit your contribution, please visit the website.

Giant
electrochemical actuation in a nanoporous silicon-polypyrrole hybrid material

Manuel Brinker, Guido Dittrich, Claudia Richert, Pirmin Lakner, Tobias Krekeler, Thomas F.
Keller, Norbert Huber, Patrick Huber

Nanoporous Silicon Flexes Muscles: The absence of piezoelectricity in silicon makes
direct electromechanical applications of this mainstream semiconductor impossible. We have combined
wafer-scale nanoporosity in single-crystalline silicon with polymerization of an artificial muscle
material inside pore space to synthesize a hybrid material that shows macroscopic electrostrain in
aqueous electrolyte. We trace this huge electroactuation to the concerted action of 100 billions of
nanopores per square centimeter cross section and to potential-dependent pressures of up to 150
atmospheres at the single-pore scale. The exceptionally small operation voltages (0.4 to 0.9 volts),
along with the sustainable and biocompatible base materials, open up entirely new frontiers for
on-chip bio- and biomedical actuorics.

Science Advances 2020; DOI:
10.1126/sciadv.aba1483
Corresponding Author: Patrick Huber

Impact of Oil Polarity on the Mixing Time at the Pore Scale in Low Salinity Waterflooding

Saheb Mohammadi, Hassan Mahani, Shahab Ayatollahi, and Vahid Niasar

The efficiency of low salinity waterflooding is highly controlled by in situ mixing
between the stagnant regions and the flowing regions. This study aims to address the effects of oil
polarity on the time scale of mixing under two-phase flow conditions. The results show that the time
scale of ionic transport can be slowed down 10–16 times by the increase of the polar fractions of
oil. It is postulated that the stronger electrical field established in the water film by the
increase of oil polarity lowers the solute transport rate according to the Poisson–Nernst–Planck
theory.

ACS Energy&Fuels 2020, 34, 10,
12247–12259
Corresponding Author: Hassan Mahani

InterPore Members, do you want to promote your publication to the community? If so, please submit
your highlight to newsletter@InterPore.org.
Clearly indicate which of the authors is an InterPore member (or the institute with an
Institutional Membership). Note that we will not review the entries nor does
InterPore endorse the published work. Furthermore, we publish on a “submitted first, published
first” basis. The highlighted publication should be no older than 6 months (available
online).

The highlight should be short (max 100 words) and contain an illustration.
Please note that we offer this opportunity exclusively to InterPore members. If you would like
to become a member, please have a look here.