[April 12, 2026] Our paper on Ostwald ripening in underground gas storage, led by Mohammad Salehpour and carried out in collaboration with Yashar Mehmani’s lab at Penn State, has been published in Geophysical Research Letters. In this study, we combine ultra-high-resolution microfluidic experiments that directly visualize the long-term evolution of residually trapped hydrogen in heterogeneous porous media. Our findings show that trapped gas remains stable underground in the absence of fractures. (Read the paper).

[September 15, 2025] Robin Zhao was appointed the inaugural Gilles G. Patry Professor of Environmental Engineering. Professor Patry’s contributions to environmental engineering, academic leadership, and Canada’s research ecosystem have shaped our field for decades.

[September 1, 2025] PhD student Mahmoud Abdelrahman joins the group. Mohmoud did his undergraduate studies in Irrigation Engineering and Hydraulics at Alexandria University. Mahmoud's Phd research focuses on subsurface gas storage using microfluidics. Welcome!!

[September 1, 2025] Masters student Carson Harvey joins the group. Carson did his undergraduate studies in Medical and Biological Physics at McMaster University. Welcome!!

[June 5, 2025] Tian Lan's perspective paper on the impact of pore-scale corner and film flows on macroscopic transport in porous media, in collaboration with Prof. Ran Hu at Wuhan University, is published in Capillarity (Read the paper).

[April 15, 2025] Postdoctoral associate Daniel Hallack joins the group. Daniel holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame, where he studied mixing and transport in complex environmental flow systems. Welcome!!

[March 5, 2025] Our group received funding from Natural Resources Canada’s Enabling SMRs program for the SAFE-T project, studying TRISO-based SMRs (Press release).

[January 13, 2025] Postdoctoral associate Tian Lan joins the group. Tian holds a Ph.D. from Wuhan University and focuses on underground hydrogen storage mechanisms. Welcome!!

[January 3, 2025] Postdoctoral associate Mahyar Malekzade joins the group. Mahyar completed his PhD in geomechanics at McMaster University. Welcome!!

[November 15, 2024] Mahtab Masouminia's paper on cloth mask effectiveness was published in Physics of Fluids. Here, we dive into the effectiveness of cloth masks as source control devices during coughing and sneezing—key moments in the spread of airborne diseases, using an innovative experimental setup combining a mechanical cough simulator and high-speed laser visualization. (Read the paper).

[October 1, 2024] Our paper on evaluating gigaton scale geological CO2 storage in Alberta is has been short-listed for the first ever annual paper award for the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control.

[September 27, 2024] We hosted Professor Ruben Juanes from MIT for the 2024 Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lecture on "Man-made Earthquakes and the Energy Transition."

[September 10, 2024] Mahtab Masouminia successfully defended her PhD dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Masouminia!!

[September 9, 2024] Our paper, led by Prof. Jeff Gostick from the University of Waterloo, on image-based simulation of drainage flow in porous media, has been published in Advances in Water Resources. In this study, we present a novel image-based invasion percolation model that utilizes a priority queue algorithm, significantly reducing computational costs while accurately capturing the effects of gravity-validated against micromodel experiments. (Read the paper).

[April 26, 2024] Negar Shahsavar successfully defended her PhD dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Shahsavar!!

[April 15, 2024] Dan Zhao's paper on evaluating gigaton scale geological CO2 storage published in International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control. In this work, we introduce a comprehensive framework for designing a large-scale CCS system, which considers the availability of emission sources, efficiency of pipeline route, storage capacity and injectivity, CO2 migration and trapping, cost, as well as policy and financial incentives. (Read the paper).

[March 31, 2024] Awarded an Alliance Missions Grant (NSERC) for sustainable lithium production with E3 Lithium and the Geological Survey of Canada (News story).

[January 9, 2024] Michelle successfully defended her Master’s thesis on closed-loop greenhouse agriculture systems. Congratulations!!

[December 19, 2023] Mohamed El-Morsy's paper on permeability upscaling using physics-informed neural networks is published in Water Resources Research. In this work, we demonstrate that the combination of a physics-informed neural network and a convolutional neural network is capable of predicting the permeability of digital rocks at the core-scale with excellent accuracy. This work is in collaboration with Prof. Wael El-Dakhakhni at McMaster. (Read the paper).

[August 23, 2023] Mohamed Elmorsy successfully defended his PhD dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Elmorsy!!

[August 13, 2023] Negar Shahsavar's paper on fingering instability published in Transport in Porous Media. We examine the impact of precipitation on fluid-fluid displacement, where the precipitation reaction is controlled by flow and mixing, which are in turn strongly influenced by the precipitated solids. This work is in collaboration with Prof. Xiaojing (Ruby) Fu at Caltech. (Read the paper).

[July 19, 2023] Ashkan Irannezhad's paper on fluid-fluid displacement in model mixed-wet porous media published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics. Here, we systematically investigate the signatures of fluid-fluid displacement in simple mixed-wet porous media including invasion pattern, pressure, and scaling. This work is in collaboration with Prof. Bauyrzhan K. Primkulov at Yale and Prof. Ruben Juanes at MIT. Check it out! (Read the paper).

[June 14, 2023] Ashkan Irannezhad successfully defended his PhD dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Irannezhad!!

[April 20, 2023] Our work on strong imbibition in microfluidics was included in the Album of Porous Media (pdf).

[March 31, 2023] Michelle Ragany's paper on closed-loop agriculture systems published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (pdf).

[March 9, 2023] Yu Hao (Dan) Zhao successfully defended his Master’s thesis. Congratulations, Master Dan!!

[February 10, 2023] Mahtab Masouminia's paper on UV-ozone induced wettability alteration in thiolene-based polymers published in Langmuir (pdf).

[January 11, 2023] Ashkan Irannezhad's paper on fluid-fluid displacement in mixed-wet porous media published in Physical Review Fluids (pdf).

[September 22, 2022] Mohamed El-Morsy's paper on porous media classification published in Proceedings of the CSCE Annual Conference 2021 (pdf).

[June 1, 2022] PhD student Michelle Ragany wins the prestigous Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Congratulations!!

[April 21, 2022] Robin Zhao delivered an invited talk at the Mechanical and Civil Engineering Seminar at Caltech.

[March 17, 2022] Mohamed El-Morsy's paper on permeability prediction via CNN published in Water Resources Research (pdf).

[March 11, 2022] Bauyrzhan Primkulov's paper on self-organized criticality in strong imbibition published in Communication Physics (pdf).

[September 18, 2021] Paper on optimizing electrolysis via surface treatment published in Cell Reports Physical Science (pdf). Improves PEM electrolyzer efficiency by >11%.

[August 2, 2021] Bauyrzhan Primkulov's paper on wettability and Lenormand’s diagram published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics (pdf).

[June 25, 2021] Lab awarded NSERC joint Canada-Germany project on hydrogen technologies, collaborating with colleagues at Leibniz Universität Hannover.

[September 10, 2020] Awarded grant by Ontario Ministry of Health to study effectiveness of masks during COVID-19 as part of McMaster’s CEPEM.

[May 22, 2020] ChungHyuk Lee's paper on gas formation in CO2 electrolyzers published in iScience (pdf).

[June 21, 2019] Comprehensive comparison of pore-scale models published in PNAS (pdf). Result of collaboration between 20 institutions.

[September 4, 2018] Robin Zhao joins the Department of Civil Engineering at McMaster University.