December 06, 2022 - by CSCS
Name
Sergey V. Churakov
Position
Full Professor of mineralogy at the University of Bern
Institution
Laboratory for Waste Management, Paul Scherrer Institute
Background
- 1996 MSc in geochemistry, Moscow State University, Russia
- 1997 MSc in applied mathematics, Moscow State University, Russia
- 1998-2002 PhD student, GeoForschungsZentrum, Potsdam, Germany
- 2002-2003 Researcher, ETH Zurich & CSCS
- 2003-2004 Researcher, ETH Zurich & USI
- 2004-2006 Staff member, Paul Scherrer Institute
- 2008-2013 Head of the Transport Mechanisms Group, Paul Scherrer Institute
- 2014-2015 Titular Professor at the University of Bern Since
- 2014 Head of Laboratory for Waste Management, Paul Scherrer Institute
- Since 2015 Full Professor of mineralogy, University of Bern
Area of research
Mineralogy and environmental sciences.
Specialised in
Reactive transport processes in geochemical systems.
HPC means for me
I am using HPC as a powerful microscope which provides me with atomic scale insight into the mechanism of fundamental geochemical processes taking place at fluid-mineral interfaces, inside of natural materials and so to validate the models suggested by experimental laboratory observations.
Molecular scale mechanism of vapor nucleation at mineral surface interface
Nowadays, computer simulation in geosciences have become an indispensable tool for testing hypothesis and predicting geochemical evolution of natural and engineered systems used for waste disposal, CO2 sequestration or geothermal energy harvesting. Coupled geochemical reactive transport modeling is often the only way to assess possible scenarios for their evolution over geological time scales. With the HPC infrastructure and IT services offered by CSCS, we are able to create high-fidelity digital twins of natural and engineered underground systems and apply these models for system design and subsequent environmental safety assessment.
