Resolving Molecular Processes at Pore Scale: Micromodels and Reactive Transport Modeling
July 28, 2026
Overview
EMSL 2026 Summer School: Day 2.
The U.S. is focused on increasing and strengthening a domestic supply of critical minerals and materials (CMMs) to provide the nation with energy independence and sustainable energy technologies.
For one week in July, researchers of all career levels, including graduate students, joined national laboratory and academic experts at EMSL 2026 Summer School to explore methods used to uncover the molecular properties and behavior of CMMs.
Check out recorded presentations from Day 2 using the navigation menu at left.
- Session 1: Micromodels-based-designs - Terraforms for Visualizing Biogeochemical Processes
- Session 2: Pore2Chip - Creating Reduced Complexity Micromodels from 3D Scan Data
- Session 3: SubTap Platforms - Visualizing Microbial and Plant–Microbe Interactions Rhizosphere
- Session 4: Chip2Flow - Integrating Pore2Chip Data with PFLOTRAN and AI/ML Models for Complex Microfluidic Geometries
Micromodels-based-designs: Terraforms for Visualizing Biogeochemical Processes
Jayde Aufrecht (Biologist, EMSL) discusses behavior at pore scale, microbial processes at mineral-pores, and controlled visualization of processes that are otherwise hidden in soil or sediments.
Pore2Chip: Creating Reduced Complexity Micromodels from 3D Scan Data
Aramy Truong (Computational Scientist, EMSL) discusses the Pore2Chip capability, focusing on how 3D sediment or rock images are transformed into microfluidic designs for fabrication and flow experiments.
SubTap Platforms: Visualizing Microbial and Plant–Microbe Interactions Rhizosphere
Arunima Bhattacharjee (Earth Scientist, EMSL) as she discusses the interrogation of microbial and plant–microbe interactions via customizable 3D‑printed designs, and their usefulness for rapid chemical phenotyping and metabolite analysis in controlled microenvironments.
Chip2Flow: Integrating Pore2Chip Data with PFLOTRAN and AI/ML Models for Complex Microfluidic Geometries
Maruti Mudunuru (Earth Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) as he discusses access and use of Pore2Chip—a Python package which creates field-representative micromodels and RhizoChips—as well as PFLOTRAN, an open-source, massively parallel, multiphysics subsurface simulator designed to run on a wide variety of computing platforms ranging from laptop computers to supercomputers.
