“The PoreLab workshop on Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics in Porous Media, on the occasion of Signe Kjelstrup’s 70^th birthday, was a great success. More than 50 people attended. Alex Hansen gave an inspiring introduction to the field. The talks were largely by young PoreLab members and focused on the present and the future of the field. An impressive amount of ongoing work was presented. The quality of the presentations was high. There was lots of interaction between the younger participants and the established experts in the field, who came as chairman and gave a few talks. An event that will be remembered by Signe and all of us.”

Professor Dick Bedeaux, chairman for the organizing committee,
September 2nd, 2019

Focus and Scope

Over many years Signe Kjelstrup has been pioneering the foundation and the application of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Regarding the fundamentals she contributed to the verification of local equilibrium, the development of mesoscopic thermodynamics to describe active transport and the extension of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to transport into and through surfaces. The theory has over the years actively been verified by applying it to electrochemical cells, membrane systems as well as for distillation columns by entropy production minimization. Effort has also been made to the use of non-equilibrium molecular dynamics to study these systems on a molecular level. The validity of the Onsager relations in homogeneous phases as well as for surfaces was verified in this manner.

In recent years the application of the methods of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to porous media has been the focus of Signe Kjelstrup’s work. Using that multi-phase flow through porous media is Euler homogeneous, it has been possible to obtain expressions for the entropy production on the macro level. The resulting dynamic description has been studied. An important recent achievement is the definition of two pressures in a nanoporous medium. Much important work is still to be done.

The workshop reviewed the highlights of the work done in the PoreLab Center of Excellence.

Find the brochure in the link below:

Program

The workshop started in the morning of Thursday August 29, 2019 and closed in the afternoon of Friday August 30, 2019. The two days program consisted of approximately 14 lectures followed by discussions.

Find the program in the link below: