Center for Mechanistic Control of Water-Hydrocarbon-Rock Interactions in Unconventional and Tight Oil Formations (CMC-UF)

Director
Anthony Kovscek
Lead Institution
Stanford University
Class
2018-2022
Mission
To seek fundamental mechanistic understanding to achieve control over the various non-equilibrium chemical and physical processes occurring in shale that increases hydrocarbon production while decreasing the amount of produced water, contaminants, and the number of wells drilled.
Research Topics
water, carbon capture, carbon sequestration, geophysics/geochemistry, mesoscale science, materials and chemistry by design
Materials Studied
Materials: None
Interfaces: organic/inorganic, organic/organic, inorganic/inorganic, gas/liquid, gas/solid, liquid/solid, solid/solid
Nanostructured Materials: None
Experimental and Theoretical Methods
X-ray diffraction and scattering, X-ray imaging, X-ray spectroscopy, electron microscopy, surface science, molecular dynamics (MD), monte carlo (MC), finite element methods, continuum modeling, mesoscale modeling, multiscale modeling, machine learning, data science

Partner Institutions
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
- Stanford University
- University of Illinois
- University of Southern California
- University of Wyoming