Public profile
Research areas
Professor Firoozabadi’s research addresses hydrocarbon energy production from conventional and unconventional subsurface formations and the stewardship of the environment. Atomistic and molecular structures in fluid and solid bulk phases and at the fluid-fluid and fluid-solid interfaces are investigated to engineer molecules at low concentration for improved hydrocarbon recovery. In recent years the focus has been on understanding of mechanisms from mechanical properties of solids, adsorption/desorption, and flow in confinement as well as fracking by different fluids. Increase in fluid-fluid interface elasticity by low concentration of functional molecules has been introduced by his group recently. He also pursues improved understanding of the processes by measurements. Most of the mathematical formulations are in the framework of bulk phase equilibrium thermodynamics, irreversible thermodynamics, interfacial thermodynamics, and molecular simulations. In large scale media, higher-order numerical simulations are advanced to investigate flow in the subsurface.