InterPore Benelux Meetings – 2nd Benelux Day

On 7 October 2016, the Benelux Interpore day was organized at Océ – A Canon Company, in Venlo by dr. Nicolae Tomozeiu (senior researcher at Océ R&D) and Hamed Aslannejad (Utrecht University).

This was the second main event of the Benelux Interpore chapter since its formation in 2014. Being the core event of the chapter, the annual Interpore Benelux day aims at bringing together porous media researchers from all over the Benelux.  The event typically aims at illustrating the large spectrum of porous media research in the Benelux area. Of course, specifically for Océ, a key interest was porous paper and its interactions with inks.

After an inspiring opening talk given by Paul Hilkens, Vice President of Océ, the program of the day was dense, varied and interesting, offering eight lectures given by researchers from universities and industry on ongoing research, four mini-presentations showing the status of PhD or post-doc research subjects, eight poster presentations and, of course, the discussions platform and professional networking. This program was built up considering the theoretical, experimental and computational modelling aspects of the research in the vast field of porous media (e.g. soil, paper, food, brain, etc).

It has to be mentioned that companies like Delft Solids Solutions, Math2Market and BrukermicroCT were present at the Benelux Interpore day and already used the possibilities on both software and hardware for research techniques related to porous media to exhibit their last products.

The invited speakers for this one-day conference are presented hereunder with their affiliation and the titles of their lectures:

• Herman Wijshoff (Océ – A Canon Company, NL): The interactions of inkjet printed droplets with porous substrates
• Bernhard Peters (University of Luxemburg, LU): The Extended Discrete Element Method (XDEM) as a flexible and advanced tool in multi-physics applications
• Michael Golombok (Shell, NL): Self-correcting rheology fluids to enhance oil recovery
• Hamed Aslannejad (Utrecht University, NL): Ink flow in coating layer of paper
• Ed van Bavel (University of Amsterdam, NL): Interstitial fluid transport in the brain
• Rafid al Khoury (Delft University, NL): A computational approach for poromechanics and hydrodynamics
• Thomas Arends (Technical University of Eindhoven, NL): Hygromorphic response dynamics of oak
• Sorin Pop (University of Hasselt, BE): Non-standard models for flow in porous media

The invited speakers, from right to left: Sorin Pop, Herman Wijshoff, Thomas Arends, Ed van Bavel, Michael Golombok, Rafid al Khoury, Bernard Peters and Hamed Aslannejad. Steffen Berg (Shell) and Nicolae Tomozeiu (Océ) as representatives of the Benelux Interpore steering committee close the group. 

The mini-presentations session was the opportunity for young researchers to reveal their scientific work. This opportunity was successfully used by

• Siem Janssen (University of Leuven, BE): Gas exchange in apple during storage under dynamic controlled atmosphere
• Nick Janssens (University of Leuven, BE): Statistical reconstruction of heterogeneous pore networks in complex continental carbonate reservoirs
• Alex Kirichek (Technical University of Delft, NL): Monitoring CO2 front propagation in complex continental reservoir rocks using electrical impedance spectroscopy 
• Ruud van der Sman (Wageningen University, NL): The making of porous food: multiscale modelling of cookie baking

To show the creative atmosphere generated by the presentations at this event, emulation between young researcher and more experienced ones, we present hereunder some photos taken by Artar Muge (Océ), …

…and some final impressions/feedback on the day sent to the organizers by participants:

• In the name of Interpore I would like to thank Océ very much for organizing this very well received BeNeLux Interpore day, and for the hospitality. I received very positive feedback from various participants, so I think the conference was a great success. (Steffen Berg)
• Thank you very much for organizing a smoothly running meeting and the great hospitability we received at Océ. (Bernhard Peters)
• It was a pleasure being there and to see everybody back. Thank you for everything! (Veerle Cnudde)
• …. it was a pleasure to join the meeting, thanks for the hospitality. (Ed van Bavel)
• Excellent meeting, especially its organization. (Rudy Swennen)
• Thank you very much for the invitation and hosting us which I enjoyed very much. (Mike Golombok)
• ….  a very successful meeting. It was great to see everyone again and I’m pleased to see the Benelux chapter is being so successful. (Majid Hassani)
• You did a great job! Thank you very much for providing us the opportunity for meeting great people. (Chaozhong)

From the organizational point of view I acknowledge the work of Hans Janssen and Hamed Aslannejad as well as from the Interpore Benelux chapter and from Thijs van Stiphout from Océ technologies. The support received from Océ management (Richard van Hameren and Paul Hilkens) is highly appreciated.

Now, looking back to this 2nd Benelux Interpore day organized at Océ, I can say that I am proud with this achievement: Océ showed the national and international scientific community again its commitment to support knowledge generation and high quality research that play a key role in creating top quality products.

Nicolae Tomozeiu (Océ – A Canon Company)