Engineering School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering

Research highlights

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Mere lab team

  • Dr Yu Jing published her paper entitled "Visualisation of [11C]Co2 storage in coal with positron emission tomography imaging" in Fuel. In this work, she developed a novel laboratory protocol, using [11C]CO2 as the radiotracer to visualise and quantify in-situ CO2 storage process in coal under positron emission tomography imaging.

  • UNSW MERE Adjunct Professor Dr Bharath Belle was awarded the Howard L. Hartman award “for outstanding contributions to mine ventilation enhancing health and safety in underground mines.” 

    The Award recognizes distinguished contributions in practice, teaching or research in the field of underground ventilation engineering. 

  • The National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme for 2023, granting compute resources on the nation’s peak supercomputing systems, has awarded a grant of 16 Million compute hours to the project "Multi-scale multi-physics modelling for geostorage applications" headed by Prof. Christoph Arns, alongside A/Prof Peyman Mostaghimi, A/Prof Ryan Armstrong, and Dr Ying Da Wang. 

    In this project 3D/4D high-resolution representations of heterogeneous porous media, extracted by dynamic tomography and super-resolution techniques, are utilized to model multi-phase flow through porous media via lattice Boltzmann methods. These calculations offer deep insights into pore-scale processes controlling geological carbon capture and hydrogen storage scenarios.

  • A team led by Professor Serkan Saydam received a RIS 2023 grant for their research “Cooling/heating temperature-controlled rock/soil testing system for extreme environment”. The project will provide new, fundamental knowledge into mechanical behaviours of rocks/soil on- and off-Earth at very high/low-temperature conditions under compression and tension. This will help develop robust methods for practical applications for on- and off-Earth geomechanics engineering.

    A team led by the University of Auckland, with UNSW-Lead Professor Christoph Arns, received a LIEF 2023 grant for their research titled “Integrated facility for underground hydrogen storage research”. The aim is to establish a state-of-the-art national research facility for hydrogen flow in porous media, enabling Australia to make technological breakthroughs in critical areas of the economy, such as clean energy.

  • The Hydrogen Storage and Production was held 20 – 21 October 2022 at UNSW, organised by a steering committee from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the University of Adelaide and received sponsorship from the Office of the Chief Scientist and Engineer of the NSW government. Covering two days of presentations and discussion on the latest research findings, technical solutions, and future directions, this event brought together the key players in hydrogen storage and production with an emphasis on underground hydrogen storage.

  • An international collaboration on space resource engineering has led to Prof Serkan Saydam, Prof Andrew Dempster (EET/ACSER), A/Prof Joung Oh and  PhD student Nicholas Barnett visiting the Korean Institute for Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) and Seoul National University (SNU). The visit took place from August 23-26 and was funded by the Australian-Korean Foundation and aims to increase the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between UNSW and KICT on lunar mining projects. The visit led to workshops and seminars for staff and students at both institutions and will increase exchange opportunities and further visits to South Korea.

  • Dr Yu Jing and her team have been awarded a usage grant for the light source at the Australian Synchrotron, a major research facility in Melbourne. It is built for experiments using the powerful synchrotron light to examine the molecular and atomic details of materials. This project (in-kind ANSTO Grant Value ~ $131K) will dynamically image multiphysical phenomena during the processes of CO2 geological storage.

  • A Fulbright scholarship was awarded to A/Prof Peyman Mostaghimi as a Senior Scholar in 2022. A highly prestigious and internationally recognised scholarship, the Fulbright award will foster bi-national collaboration between Australia and the USA on research in hydrogen storage. The project will be hosted by Kansas State University and will be funded by the Kinghorn Foundation.