In a free public seminar at 3:30 PM on February 12, in room 1115 of the Wisconsin Energy Institute, UW–Madison Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Greeshma Gadikota will give a talk on technologies for carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration and other gases relevant to energy technologies.

Connecting the sub-nano- and meso-scale interactions of gases with hierarchical and heterogeneous materials in natural and engineered processes has applications for many areas such as the geologic storage of CO2, enhanced hydrocarbon recovery, noble gases as tracers for hydrocarbon or CO2 migration, and limiting the diffusion of H2 from the corrosion of radioactive waste containers to prevent explosions. Other critical technical challenges in sustainable energy and environment are the development of thermodynamically downhill routes for CO2 conversion and the safe and permanent storage of CO2. To address these technical challenges, the diffusivity and partitioning behavior of the gases in confined pore spaces are determined using molecular dynamics simulations. These studies are complimented by in-operando multi-scale X-ray and neutron scattering measurements of gas interactions with hierarchical materials such as clays at elevated temperatures and pressures (Tmax = 90oC, Pmax = 80 bar). Further, the engineered conversion of CO2 to carbonates in heterogeneous materials (e.g., Ca- and Mg-silicates minerals and rocks), and the tuning of carbonate morphology and structure for integration with the built environment are investigated. The implications of these results for sustainable energy and resource recovery are evaluated.