Seminar"Chaos in confinement: Using polymers to mix fluids and speed up chemical reactions in porous media"Sujit Datta

Micro/Bio/Nanofluidics (Shen) Unit would like to invite you to the seminar by Prof. Sujit Datta on April 20 (Monday).
 
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Date:   April 20, 2026
Time:  11:00-12:00
Venue: B503, OIST
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Speaker:

Sujit Datta
Professor
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Title:

Chaos in confinement: Using polymers to mix fluids and speed up chemical reactions in porous media

Abstract:

Many energy, environmental, industrial, and microfluidic processes rely on the viscous flow of polymer solutions through porous media. These fluids are typically shear-thinning; however, these solutions can unexpectedly flow thicken when forced through confined, tortuous spaces such as in porous media. The reason why has been a puzzle for over half a century. In this talk, I will describe how by directly visualizing the flow in a transparent 3D porous medium, we have found that this anomalous flow thickening reflects the onset of an elastic instability in which the fluid exhibits chaotic velocity fluctuations reminiscent of inertial turbulence, despite the vanishingly small Reynolds number. In addition to characterizing this fascinating flow state, we have found that this phenomenon can be harnessed for improving mixing and the efficiency of flow-mediated chemical reactions — with implications for a broad range of processes that are typically limited by poor mixing.

Host:
Prof. Amy Shen