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SUMMARY:MechE Colloquium: Flow\, transport and mixing limited processes in
  confined media
DTSTART:20221108T120000
DTEND:20221108T130000
DTSTAMP:20260924T082726Z
UID:02121a55f64b28a4b52ff73efd328fc386a9e604d49c239bda591051
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Pietro de Anna\, Institute of Earth Sciences (ISTE)\, Un
 iversity of Lausanne (UNIL)\nAbstract: Natural soils are host to a high de
 nsity and diversity of substances\, suspensions and microorganisms\, and e
 ven deep-earth porous rocks provide a habitat for active microbial communi
 ties. In these environments\, transport by disordered flows is relevant fo
 r a broad range of natural and engineered processes\, from biochemical cyc
 ling to remineralization\, bioremediation and filtration. A key property o
 f most porous systems is the underlying heterogeneity that may occur due t
 o non-uniformity in size or shape of the constitutive grains. Such physica
 l heterogeneity controls transport and mixing of solutes driving geo-chemi
 cal kinetics and colloidal/bacterial deposition and filtration. The comple
 xity that rises from the coupling of such microscopic processes makes pred
 ictions based on rates measured under homogenized\, well-mixed\, condition
 s different by orders of magnitudes from field observations. We use numer
 ical methods and laboratory experiments (based on micro fluidics and time-
 lapse video-microscopy) to investigate microscopic processes (as flow\, mi
 xing\, microbial transport and growth) that take place within the confined
  space of heterogeneously distributed pores. While observing these microsc
 opic processes\, we also monitor their macroscopic consequences\, includin
 g deposition profiles\, breakthrough curves\, reaction kinetics and biomas
 s growth. Based on such multi-scale observations\, we build new theoretica
 l models\, that we feed with measured parameters\, to unravel the link bet
 ween microscopic-scale processes and their macroscopic consequences.\n\nBi
 ography: I am physicist\, I got a Master from the University of Florence (
 Italy) in Statistical Mechanics and a PhD in Earth Sciences from the Unive
 rsity of Rennes 1 (France)\, where I studied mixing and reactions in porou
 s media. While I was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT (Boston\, U.S.)\, I lear
 ned microfluidics and video-microscopy that I use to develop novel experim
 ents for porous media investigation. Since 2015 I am a professor at the In
 stitute of Earth Sciences (ISTE) of the University of Lausanne (UNIL). I a
 m interested in the physics of flow and mixing-driven processes in confine
 d micro-structures\, like filters or soil\, with particular attention to t
 heir coupling with biological activities. In my group we combine theoretic
 al/numerical approaches to microfluidics experiments to visualize and quan
 tify small scale processes in confined flows in the spirit of modelling th
 eir larger scale consequences (upscaling) on reactive transport and filtra
 tion phenomena.
LOCATION:MED 0 1418 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==MED%200%201418 https://epf
 l.zoom.us/j/65387864766
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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