Dear InterPore colleagues,

Today’s Newsletter has a very pleasant diversity of articles, if I may say so. Important info from the InterPore office regarding the upcoming elections. Science and job opportunities from our community as well as calls for a summer school and a benchmarking exercise.

Also, we welcome a new team member for the Research Spotlight (find out who that is below!), who is replacing Felipe de Barros who’s done that work for more than a decade! And more great news from the staff department: Tannaz Pak is willing to become the InterPore liaison officer for the ISC. I think that may proof to be a critical position in this world full of crises (war, health, climate, refugees, food…). The ISC is working in a constructive manner to turn the tide for the best and we all must take our responsibility accordingly.

All the best,

Matthijs de Winter
Editor-in-Chief
InterPore News

Registration for In-Person Poster Presentations

We are continuing to populate all of the conference events and presentations into Whova, and will soon begin uploading abstracts and information from registered poster presentations. In-person poster presenters are required to register by 30 April. You can view the detailed program here.

MAP

InterPore is proud to announce the Bronze Sponsorship of MAP at InterPore2022!

MaP – Microstructure and Pores GmbH combines 25 years of experience in a wide area of applications of nano- and microstructural research. We offer highly accurate multi-scale microstructural investigations of challenging geological, chemical and biological samples down to nanometer resolution. With our service we support and advise our customers to better understand their material design and production.

Our approach:

• BIB-SEM: Broad Ion Beam (BIB) Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is one of our core technologies and enables imaging of damage-free sample cross-sections at nano-scale resolution
• Cryo-BIB-SEM: Cryo-Broad Ion Beam sputtering combined with Cryo-Scanning Electron Microscopy enables us to analyze cryo-preserved fluids inside pore networks and microcracks as well as soft and beam sensitive matter
• LMI-BIB-SEM: The Liquid Metal Injection (LMI) is used to fill the pore network down to a specific pore throat diameter and followed by BIB-SEM to visualize the connected pore space
• VIP: Virtual petrography enables multi-scale automated petrographic analyses to segment fracture networks, minerals, pores and mineral overgrowths in thin section samples
• MAPRO IMAGE ANALYSIS SOFTWARE: Our BIB-SEM dedicated software provides DeepLearning based pore segmentation and classification of features and minerals of interest as well as automated mineral phase analysis.

Get started at www.m-a-p.expert.

Abu Dhabi Spotlight

For those of us in the northern hemisphere starting to think about summer beach vacations, why not get a head start? For those of you in the lower half not quite ready to let summer go, don’t! Did you know that Abu Dhabi has over a dozen beaches for you to enjoy?! From the powder-white sands and protected dunes of Saadiyat Beach to the seaside boardwalk and water sports facilities at Corniche Beach, there are turquoise waters fit for every type of beach-goer in Abu Dhabi. Don’t forget to pack your sunscreen!

Sponsored in part by:

Announcement of InterPore Elections 2022

InterPore Elections are coming up, spanning an election period from 1 – 30 November 2022. With this announcement, we wish to inform the Society members about the details of the election procedure.

Who will be elected?

A new President-Elect and four new Council members will be elected.

The terms of office of the current InterPore President is due to end on 30 April 2023. As stipulated in the InterPore Bylaws, the current President, Prof. Michel Quintard (Université de Toulouse), will transfer responsibilities to the current President-Elect, Prof. Karsten Thompson (Louisiana State University). As such, a new President-Elect needs to be elected.

In addition, the term of four Council members will end on the same date, and four new Council Members will be elected in November.

Who is conducting the elections?

The Election Committee, appointed by the current InterPore leadership, consists of Prof. Gabriel Wittum (Chair, Goethe University Frankfurt), Professor Iryna Zenyuk (University of California), Dr. Yixiang Gan (The University of Sydney) and Prof. Marios Valavanides (University of West Attica). Dr. Karolin Weber (InterPore Executive Officer) and Ms. Amy Spang (InterPore Office Manager) will assist in the technical implementation. InterPore, and the Election Committee in particular, is committed to ensuring a free, fair, and transparent election process.

Periods of Office: The Bylaws of the Society stipulate the election of a new President-Elect and four (or five) new Council members every other year. The new President-Elect will serve from May 2023 to April 2025 and will automatically assume the Presidency for the term May 2025 to April 2027. Elected Council Members will serve for four years on the new Council starting May 2023.

How will you vote?

All current InterPore members that have already paid their 2022 membership fees (or are exempted) are eligible to vote. They will receive an email with a personalized one-time link to the election tool.

A Nomination Committee is formed by the Past President, Prof. Laura J. Pyrak-Nolte (Purdue University) to collect nominations for President-Elect and four new Council Members.

In one of the next newsletters, a Call for Candidate Nominations will be published.

We seek:

• At least two candidates for President-Elect
• At least eight candidates for the Council elections

For the Council candidates at least three of them must be representatives from the industry and at least one representative from industry will be elected to the Council.

Once all nominations are received, the Executive Committee (EC) selects two candidates from the list of nominees who will run for President-Elect and at least eight candidates for the vacancies in the Council. Criteria for the selection of candidates by EC and approval by the Council are (1) personal qualifications, (2) balancing industry and academic/research institutions, and (3) ensuring – as much as possible – gender and geographical balance. Only nominees who agree to serve, once elected, will be accepted.

Nominate or volunteer!

Please volunteer to run for an office and/or nominate candidates! The Call for Candidate Nominations will be published soon.

Research Spotlight

Research Spotlights are a service offered to our institutional members. In a Research Spotlight, an institute, university, or research department provides information about its latest important results and/or its research capabilities and facilities.

The Research Spotlight idea was initiated and developed by Felipe De Barros (University of Southern California) back in 2010, and he continued to be the Research Spotlight Editor until now. He has now decided to step down and engage in other InterPore activities. We would like to thank Felipe for the great work he has done and for his continued support of InterPore.

It is our great pleasure to announce that Prof. Lynn Schreyer (Washington State University) has agreed to be the new Research Spotlights Editor!

Lynn has been involved in InterPore from almost its inception – in 2012 she was the Program Chair for the InterPore 2012 meeting. Further, she served as a Council Member (2011-2015), was on the scientific committee for the 2014 annual meeting, chaired the Election Committee in 2014, and chaired the Jubilee committee (2016-2018). She’s very excited to be part of promoting all the interesting porous media research that is happening, and encourages all members to volunteer to help make InterPore even better!

ISC Liaison

We are very happy to announce Tannaz Pak as InterPore’s newly-appointed International Science Council liaison. Tannaz is a senior lecturer in Energy and Environmental engineering at Teesside University, England, and was selected as one of the Top 50 Women in Engineering by the Women’s Engineering Society in the UK in 2021. In her role as ISC liaison, Tannaz will actively pursue opportunities for InterPore to become involved in the broader network of the international scientific community, build connections with ISC members who are working on topics related to porous media, and keep the InterPore community apprised of ISC announcements and activities. We are grateful to Tannaz for her support in strengthening the international awareness of and support for the porous media community.

War in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has terrible consequences. First and foremost for the Ukrainian citizens suffering from the Russian aggression. But also on a global scale, with the danger of famine and the inability to deal with the climate crisis. The ISC has uploaded a letter to all of us. Please read it carefully and see what you can do to help!

CISM-IUTAM Summer School

An invitation from our colleagues from Oxford, Twente and Vienna

Hello colleagues,

We write to call your attention to the upcoming CISM-IUTAM Summer School on “Convection and Deformation in Porous Media”, which will be held this summer in Udine, Italy (11-15 July 2022). The course will cover state-of-the-art modelling, simulation, and experimental techniques for geophysical, industrial, and biological applications.

For details and registration, please visit our website.

On-site places are limited and will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Virtual participation is also available. Financial support may be available upon request. Please do not hesitate to contact us with questions.

Best, Chris MacMinn (U Oxford) and Marco De Paoli (U Twente & TU Vienna)

Call for participation: Benchmarking

A proposal for a benchmark on reactive multiphase flow in porous media at the Darcy scale has been published. The Benchmark was written to address several challenges commonly met in applications:

1. Robust coupling of chemical reactions with multiphase flow in porous media,
2. Phase behaviour coupling with equilibrium reactions,
3. Conservative treatment of solid phase dissolution and precipitation,
4. Effective coupling of equations in the case of multiple (concurrent) reactions.

The aim of the benchmark is to compare numerical approaches and the ability to predict performance of the nonlinear coupling between two-phase flows and geochemical reactions in the context of CO2 sequestration.

If you want to intend to submit a contribution to this benchmark, please contact Brahim Amaziane.

More info

Short course Yade software

Everyone is invited to a brand new short course covering theory and practical implementation of fluid and thermal couplings in particulate systems with Yade software. The course will be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands from 20 – 22 June 2022, where participants will learn hands-on with Robert Caulk and Bruno Chareyre. More information is available at their website.

Machine learning to predict effective reaction rates in 3D porous media from pore structural features

Min Liu, Beomjin Kwon & Peter K. Kang

Large discrepancies between well-mixed reaction rates and effective reactions rates estimated under fluid flow conditions have been a major issue for predicting reactive transport in porous media systems. In this study, we introduce a framework that accurately predicts effective reaction rates directly from pore structural features by combining 3D pore-scale numerical simulations with machine learning. We show that effective reaction rates can be accurately predicted with only three pore structural features, which are specific surface, pore sphericity, and coordination number. The proposed framework enables accurate predictions of effective reaction rates directly from a few measurable pore structural features, and the framework is readily applicable to a wide range of applications involving porous media flows.

Scientific Reports volume 12, Article number: 5486 (2022)
Corresponding Author: Peter Kang

Two-Phase Flow Mechanisms Controlling CO2 Intrusion into Shaly Caprock

Iman Rahimzadeh Kivi, Roman Makhnenko, Victor Vilarrasa

The efficiency of the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is tightly associated with the sealing capacity of the caprock(s) overlying the storage formation. We combined laboratory experiments and numerical simulations to foster an improved understanding of the governing mechanisms of CO2 intrusion and flow through shaly caprock representative – Opalinus Clay. We find that the sealing capacity of intact shale is unlikely to be compromised by capillary breakthrough and viscous flow through the pore network. Potential leakage would be dominated by the intrinsically slow molecular diffusion, favoring safe storage of CO2 underground over geological time scales.

Transport in Porous Media volume 141, 771–798 (2022)
Corresponding Author: Iman Rahimzadeh Kivi

On the Comparative Analysis of Different Phase Coexistences in Mesoporous Materials

Henry R. N. B. Enninful, Dirk Enke and Rustem Valiullin

Gas sorption, NMR Cryoporometry/Thermoporometry and Mercury Intrusion are mesoporous solid characterization techniques which utilize phase coexistences to elucidate pore structure.

In our recent paper, we have compared data from the three techniques in a series of mesoporous materials via a common framework. This provides a more direct way to analyze data from the three textural characterization techniques.

We obtain a perfect overlap for the data in pores of especially large sizes. As pore size decreases, marked changes are observed down to pores of very small sizes where the fundamental equations governing gas-liquid and solid-liquid phase transitions break down.

Materials 2022, 15(7), 2350
Corresponding Author: Henry Enninful

InterPore Members can promote their publications to the community via the InterPore In Journals Section of the Newsletter. If you wish to do so, please submit your publication 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.

PhD

• PhD position – Multiscale modeling of the porous electrodes of lithium-ion batteries based on reconstructed 3D microstructures, Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (IMFT), Toulouse, France

Post-doc

• Post-Doctoral Fellow Position in Multiphase Flow, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
• Post-Doctoral position on Convective dissolution in porous rock, DMEX Centre for X-ray Imaging, Pau, France

Research Associate

• Research Associate in Quantitative Geomechanical Risk Analysis, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

If you have a job opening in your institute and would like to promote it internationally, please send the description and weblink or PDF to newsletter@interpore.org, and we’ll be happy to add it to the list.