Tom Bultreys is an associate professor at Ghent University, Belgium. He investigates fluid flows in porous rocks during underground hydrogen and carbon dioxide storage and sustainable groundwater applications, developing new methods to image and model the pore-scale physics. Before joining Ghent University’s Centre for X-ray Tomography (UGCT) and Department of Geology, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London. His work resulted in Interpore’s Porelab Award for Young Researchers 2019 and a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC) in 2023.

Fluid flow and transport through porous materials is ubiquitous in nature and engineering. The pores of rocks in the subsurface hold groundwater reserves and can store hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Over the past years, micro-CT has become an indispensable tool to study fluid flows in these porous media, thanks to its ability to visualize pore structures and what goes on in them. In this talk, I will discuss our latest progress on using this to improve our understanding of such flows from the pore- to the core-scale. First, I will show it is now possible to measure 3D flow fields with micrometer-scale resolutions in rock samples. This is done by using the latest fast micro-CT methods with sub-second time resolutions, yielding new fundamental insights on a variety of fluid dynamics problems in porous media. Second, I will discuss how pore-scale flow imaging at reservoir conditions adds value to applied projects such as underground hydrogen storage (UHS) studies. This will focus on “BE-HyStore”, a joint investigation by UGent and Fluxes on converting a fractured carbonate aquifer, currently used to store natural gas in Belgium, to a UHS.