Nanofluidics for Energy

许多大规模的能源应用依赖于小规模的流体运输。在过去的几年里，我们的团队和其他人开发了用于生物能源、碳封存、储层流体分析和量化传统微孔油气藏中孔隙尺度运移的微流体方法。然而，目前的全球能源正在被非常规石油和天然气业务重塑，即对纳米孔道页岩气和致密油藏进行水力压裂。裂缝性油藏中的流体运移是高温高压下多组分多相流通过纳米孔隙和微裂缝的复杂相互作用，可以是润湿的，也可以是非润湿的。这是一个非常复杂的过程，人们对此知之甚少。

Many large scale energy applications rely on small scale fluid transport. Over the last few years our group and others have developed microfluidic approaches for bioenergy, carbon sequestration, reservoir fluid analysis, and quantifying pore-scale transport in conventional microporous oil and gas reservoirs. Current global energy, however, is being reshaped by unconventional oil and gas operations, namely the hydraulic fracturing of nanoporous shale gas and tight oil reservoirs. Transport of fluids in fractured reservoirs is a complex interplay of multicomponent multiphase flow through both nano-pores and micro-fractures, which may be wetting or non-wetting, at high temperature and pressure. This is a very complicated process that is poorly understood.