Earth Sciences Division Staff: Sergi Molins Rafa

Sergi Molins Rafa

Sergi Molins Rafa

Post Doctoral Research Fellow

Geochemistry Department

 

 

Phone: 510-486-7540

Fax: 510-486-5686

Email: SMolins@lbl.gov

Additional Information

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biographical Summary

I am a reactive transport modeler involved in research for the Sustainable Systems Scientific Focus Area and the Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2. I am interested in the investigation of the coupling between fluid flow, solute transport and geochemical processes in subsurface environments at different scales by means of reactive transport modeling. I am currently developing tools to perform direct numerical simulation of flow, transport and geochemical reactions at the pore scale. We are using these tools to quantify porosity and permeability changes due to geochemical reactions, and in turn their effect on upscaled reaction rates. Previously, I investigated the feedback mechanisms between geochemical reactions and gas transport in the vadose zone and worked on the development of an efficient formulation for reactive transport problems that maximized the number of equations decoupled from chemical reaction terms.

Education

  • 2007 - Ph.D., University of British Columbia 
  • 2001 - Civil Engineer, Technical University of Catalonia

Professional Experience

  • 2008-present:  Post-doctoral Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 2002 – 2007:  Teaching & Research Assistant, University of British Columbia
  • 2001 – 2002:  Research Assistant, Technical Univ. of Catalonia & CSIC-Earth Sci. Inst. ‘Jaume Almera’

Professional Activities

  • Member: American Geophysical Union.
  • Reviewer: Water Resour. Res., Environ. Sci. Technol., Am. J. Sci., Waste Management, J. Hydrol., Hydrol. & Earth System Sci., J. Contamin. Hydrol., and J. Environ. Quality.
  • Convener of the special session “Modeling of Subsurface Biogeochemical Processes” at the XVIII Conference on Computational Methods in Water Resources (CMWR 2010), Barcelona, June 21-24, 2010.

Fellowships

Egil H. Lorntzsen Scholarship (UBC, 2006), University Graduate Fellowship (UBC, 2003-2005), Thomas and Marguerite MacKay Memorial Scholarship (UBC, 2003)