Summary
Biography
- Principal Research Fellow, Imperial College
- PhD, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College, 2000
Recent Measures of Esteem
INVITED/KEYNOTE TALKS
- at the BEATS (Beamline for Tomography at SESAME) European Union funded inaugural workshop at the Cyprus Institute as a part of The SESAME international centre for scientific research, a collaboration between 8 countries under the auspices of UNESCO, 27-28 June 2019.
- at the Inaugural workshop of Norwegian Chapter of Interpore, Trondheim, Norway, 18 October 2017.
- at the 20th International Conference on Computational Methods in Water Resources (CMWR2014), Stuttgart, 9-13 June 2014;
- at the Porous Media Process Modelling (PMPM) workshop on 3D Imaging and Applications to Geosciences, Dundee, 7-8 October 2013.
- invited talks at the prestigious international conferences such as American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Physical Society (APS), American Chemical Society (ACS), INTERPORE, Goldschmidt, and European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE).
EDITORIAL / CONFERENCES
- Associate Editor of Water Resources Research, since 2019.
- Editor of the Special Issue of the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, “Advances in experimental techniques, validation of modelling tools and uncertainty in predictions from pore to field scale”, 2018.
- Editor of the Special Issue of the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, “Reactive Transport in the Subsurface: Mixing, Spreading and Reaction in Heterogeneous Media”, 2011.
- “Reactive Transport in Porous Media”, conference chair at Imperial College co-organised with the Magnetic Resonance Research Centre from University of Cambridge, 8-9 September 2016.
- serving on the Scientific Committee at the 21st Computational Methods in Water Resources (CMWR) conference, Toronto, Canada, 20-24 June 2016.
Research Interests
The principal focus of my research is Fluid Flow in Porous Media. My research addresses key global challenges in the 21st century, namely securing sustainable access to energy and water for a growing population, while avoiding dangerous climate change.
My main research areas have been subsurface carbon storage, contaminant transport, and improved oil recovery. The aim is to transform our current understanding of flow, transport and reaction in porous media by developing pore-scale imaging, image analysis, and modelling tools.
The main research themes are:
A) DEVELOPING SAFE CARBON STORAGE AND IMPROVED HYDROCARBON RECOVERY TECHNOLOGIES IN SUBSURFACE POROUS MEDIA
Pore-scale imaging of flow and reactive transport in carbon-dioxide storage and hydrocarbon recovery (both on micro-CT scanners and synchrotron sources at Diamond Light Source, Didcot, UK and Elettra, Trieste, Italy); Image analysis to characterise in-situ wettability; pore-scale modeling of multiphase flow and reactive transport in porous media; Pore-scale direct simulation finite-volume based models (e.g. Bijeljic et al., Phys. Rev. E, 2013, Raeini et al.,Journal of Computational Physics, 2012; Akai et al., Transport in Porous Media, 2019; Oliveira et al., 2019) on micro-CT images, and pore network models (e.g. Bijeljic et al., Phys. Rev. E, 2011; Blunt et al., Adv. Water Resour., 2013; Raeini et al, Phys. Rev. E, 2018) are used to describe single and multiphase (gas/oil/water) flow in geologically representative porous rocks at the macroscopic scale.
This work has been sponsored by Total, Qatar Petroleum, Shell and Qatar Science and Technology Park, Pore-scale Modelling Consortium, EPSRC, ETI and NERC. I am a member of and collaborating with the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Consortium, as well as QCCSRC and Shell Grand Challenge Programme on Clean Fossil Fuels and Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College.
B) DEVELOPING MODELLING AND EXPERIMENTAL TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT AND REACTION IN SUBSURFACE HYDROLOGY
The main goal is to predict the microscopic efficiency of contaminant remediation and carbon storage processes by estimating transport and reaction rates.
The subjects include non-Fickian and Fickian liquid and gas transport in porous media; development of a novel methodology based on probability density functions of transit times between pores to fully describe solute dispersion. The outcome of this approach has been to unifiy pore-scale network modelling with Continuous Time Random Walks (CTRW) theory and experiment (Bijeljic et al., Water Resour. Res., 2004; Bijeljic and Blunt, Water Resour. Res., 2006). Relying on this concept, a physically-based explanation for anomalous transport processes in natural porous media has been provided at multiple scales (Rhodes et al. Adv. Water Resour., 2008).
Furthermore, a novel modelling approach based on direct simulation of flow and transport on the voxelised micro-CT images of natural porous media has resulted in a novel methodology to explain the origin of non-Fickian transport by looking into and relating probability density functions of velocity and displacement (Bijeljic et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2011; Bijeljic et al. Phys. Rev. E, 2013; Bijeljic et al., Water Resour. Res., 2013) - these can be routinely used for fast characterisation of porous media heterogeneity. This approach has been expanded to study the impact of physical (flow) heterogeneity on effective reaction rates in fluid/fluid (Alhashmi et al., Transport in Porous Media, 2016; Oliveira et al., Adv. Water Resour., 2019) and fluid/solid (Pereira-Nunes et al., Water Resour. Res., 2016; Al-Khulaifi et al., Env. Sci. Technology, 2017).
C) DEVELOPING MULTI-SCALE IMAGING AND MODELLING TOOLS FOR FLOW AND REACTIVE TRANSPORT IN POROUS MEDIA
An important goal is to quantify key determinants of multiphase flow behaviour, i.e., the impact of wettability and microporosity on two-phase flow behaviour (Gao et al.,Adv. Water Resour., 2019), to help design storage and recovery schemes. The key objective is to provide robust workflows that include experiments and modelling to help make key decisions in injection strategies.
Furthermore, scale-dependence of reaction rates in subsurface porous media has been systematically examined and quantified as a function of coupled physical and chemical heterogeneity in supercritical CO2/brine experiments (Al-Khulaifi et al., Water Resour. Res., 2019).
NMR studies have been proven to be an excellent tool for multi-scale characterization of dynamics of reactive transport in heterogeneous porous media (Muljadi et al.,J. Cont. Hydrology, 2018). These studies have been done In collaboration with the MRRC at University of Cambridge (the team lead by Prof. Lynn Gladden, Dr. Andy Sederman and Dr. Mick Mantle), demonstrating a combined imaging and modelling approach to characterise dissolution processes.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Blunt MJ, Lin Q, Akai T, et al., 2019, A thermodynamically consistent characterization of wettability in porous media using high-resolution imaging, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, Vol:552, ISSN:0021-9797, Pages:59-65
Gao Y, Qaseminejad Raeini A, Blunt MJ, et al., 2019, Pore occupancy, relative permeability and flow intermittency measurements using X-ray micro-tomography in a complex carbonate, Advances in Water Resources, Vol:129, ISSN:0309-1708, Pages:56-69
Lin Q, Bijeljic B, Berg S, et al., 2019, Minimal surfaces in porous media: Pore-scale imaging of multiphase flow in an altered-wettability Bentheimer sandstone, Physical Review E, Vol:99, ISSN:1539-3755, Pages:063105-1-063105-13
Oliveira TDS, Blunt MJ, Bijeljic B, 2019, Modelling of multispecies reactive transport on pore-space images, Advances in Water Resources, Vol:127, ISSN:0309-1708, Pages:192-208
Al-Khulaifi Y, Lin Q, Blunt MJ, et al., 2019, Pore-scale dissolution by CO₂ saturated brine in a multimineral carbonate at reservoir conditions: impact of physical and chemical heterogeneity, Water Resources Research, Vol:55, ISSN:0043-1397, Pages:3171-3193
Akai T, Alhammadi AM, Blunt MJ, et al., 2019, Modeling oil recovery in mixed-wet rocks: Pore-scale comparison between experiment and simulation, Transport in Porous Media, Vol:127, ISSN:0169-3913, Pages:393-414
AlRatrout A, Blunt MJ, Bijeljic B, 2018, Wettability in complex porous materials, the mixed-wet state, and its relationship to surface roughness, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol:115, ISSN:0027-8424, Pages:8901-8906
Akai T, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2018, Wetting boundary condition for the color-gradient lattice Boltzmann method: Validation with analytical and experimental data, Advances in Water Resources, Vol:116, ISSN:0309-1708, Pages:56-66
Raeini AQ, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2018, Generalized network modeling of capillary-dominated two-phase flow, Physical Review E, Vol:97, ISSN:1539-3755
Gao Y, Lin Q, Bijeljic B, et al., 2017, X-ray Microtomography of Intermittency in Multiphase Flow at Steady State Using a Differential Imaging Method, Water Resources Research, Vol:53, ISSN:0043-1397, Pages:10274-10292
Al-Khulaifi Y, Lin Q, Blunt MJ, et al., 2017, Reservoir-condition pore-scale imaging of dolomite reaction with supercritical CO<inf>2</inf>acidified brine: Effect of pore-structure on reaction rate using velocity distribution analysis, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol:68, ISSN:1750-5836, Pages:99-111
Alhammadi AM, AlRatrout A, Singh K, et al., 2017, In situ characterization of mixed-wettability in a reservoir rock at subsurface conditions., Scientific Reports, Vol:7, ISSN:2045-2322
AlRatrout A, Raeini AQ, Bijeljic B, et al., 2017, Automatic measurement of contact angle in pore-space images, Advances in Water Resources, Vol:109, ISSN:0309-1708, Pages:158-169
Raeini AQ, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2017, Generalized network modeling: Network extraction as a coarse-scale discretization of the void space of porous media, Physical Review E, Vol:96, ISSN:2470-0045
Al-Khulaifi Y, Lin Q, Blunt MJ, et al., 2017, Reaction Rates in Chemically Heterogeneous Rock: Coupled Impact of Structure and Flow Properties Studied by X-ray Microtomography, Environmental Science & Technology, Vol:51, ISSN:0013-936X, Pages:4108-4116
Lin Q, Al-Khulaifi Y, Blunt M, et al., 2016, Quantification of sub-resolution porosity in carbonate rocks by applying high-salinity contrast brine using X-ray microtomography differential imaging, Advances in Water Resources, Vol:96, ISSN:0309-1708, Pages:306-322
Al Nahari Alhashmi Z, Blunt MJ, Bijeljic B, 2016, The impact of pore structure heterogeneity, transport, and reaction conditions on fluid/fluid reaction rate studied on images of pore space, Transport in Porous Media, Vol:115, ISSN:1573-1634, Pages:215-237
Pereira Nunes JP, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2016, Pore-space structure and average dissolution rates: A simulation study, Water Resources Research, Vol:52, ISSN:0043-1397, Pages:7198-7212
Pereira Nunes JP, Blunt MJ, Bijeljic B, 2016, Pore-scale simulation of carbonate dissolution in micro-CT images, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol:121, ISSN:2169-9356, Pages:558-576
Andrew M, Menke H, Blunt MJ, et al., 2015, The imaging of dynamic multiphase fluid flow using synchrotron-based x-ray microtomography at reservoir conditions, Transport in Porous Media, Vol:110, ISSN:1573-1634, Pages:1-24
Alhashmi Z, Blunt MJ, Bijeljic B, 2015, Predictions of Dynamic Changes in Reaction Rates as aConsequence of Incomplete Mixing Using Pore-scale Reactive TransportModeling on Images of Porous Media, Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol:179, ISSN:1873-6009, Pages:171-181
Andrew M, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2014, Pore-by-pore capillary pressure measurements using X-ray microtomography at reservoir conditions: Curvature, snap-off, and remobilization of residual CO<sub>2</sub>, Water Resources Research, Vol:50, ISSN:0043-1397, Pages:8760-8774
Andrew M, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2014, Pore-scale contact angle measurements at reservoir conditions using X-ray microtomography, Advances in Water Resources, Vol:68, ISSN:0309-1708, Pages:24-31
Andrew M, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2014, Pore-scale imaging of trapped supercritical carbon dioxide in sandstones and carbonates, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Vol:22, ISSN:1750-5836, Pages:1-14
Bijeljic B, Mostaghimi P, Blunt MJ, 2013, Insights into non-Fickian solute transport in carbonates, Water Resources Research, Vol:49, ISSN:0043-1397, Pages:2714-2728
Bijeljic B, Raeini A, Mostaghimi P, et al., 2013, Predictions of non-Fickian solute transport in different classes of porous media using direct simulation on pore-scale images., Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys, Vol:87
Mostaghimi P, Blunt MJ, Bijeljic B, 2013, Computations of Absolute Permeability on Micro-CT Images, Mathematical Geosciences, Vol:45, ISSN:1874-8961, Pages:103-125
Raeini AQ, Blunt MJ, Bijeljic B, 2012, Modelling two-phase flow in porous media at the pore scale using the volume-of-fluid method, Journal of Computational Physics, Vol:231, ISSN:0021-9991, Pages:5653-5668
Bijeljic B, Mostaghimi P, Blunt MJ, 2011, Signature of Non-Fickian Solute Transport in Complex Heterogeneous Porous Media, Physical Review Letters, Vol:107, ISSN:0031-9007
Rhodes ME, Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2008, Pore-to-field simulation of single-phase transport using continuous time random walks, Advances in Water Resources, Vol:31, ISSN:0309-1708, Pages:1527-1539
Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2007, Pore-scale modeling of transverse dispersion in porous media, Water Resources Research, Vol:43, ISSN:0043-1397
Bijeljic B, Blunt MJ, 2006, Pore-scale modeling and continuous time random walk analysis of dispersion in porous media, Water Resources Research, Vol:42, ISSN:0043-1397
Bijeljic B, Muggeridge AH, Blunt MJ, 2004, Pore-scale modeling of longitudinal dispersion, Water Resources Research, Vol:40, ISSN:0043-1397