Christopher MacMinn

I recently earned my PhD from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. My background is in fluid mechanics and applied mathematics, and I'm generally interested in using theoretical modeling and simple experiments to study complex geophysical and environmental fluids problems. I'm currently a Yale Climate & Energy Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University.

The focus of my PhD research was on the physics of geological carbon dioxide (CO2) storage, and specifically on the migration and trapping of the buoyant CO2 after injection into saline aquifers.

Complete CV

Recent work

Lifetime of carbon capture and storage as a climate-change mitigation technology.

M. L. Szulczewski, C. W. MacMinn, H. J. Herzog, and R. Juanes, PNAS, 109(14):5185-5189 (2012). (abstract)

Migration and Trapping of CO2 in Saline Aquifers.

C. W. MacMinn, Ph.D. Thesis, MIT (2012).

CO2 migration in saline aquifers. Part 2. Capillary and solubility trapping.

C. W. MacMinn, M. L. Szulczewski and R. Juanes, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 688:321-351 (2011). (pdf)

CO2 migration in saline aquifers. Part 1. Capillary trapping under slope and groundwater flow.

C. W. MacMinn, M. L. Szulczewski and R. Juanes, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 662:329-351 (2010). (pdf)

The footprint of the CO2 plume during carbon dioxide storage in saline aquifers: storage efficiency for capillary trapping at the basin scale.

R. Juanes, C. W. MacMinn, and M. L. Szulczewski, Transport in Porous Media, 82(1):19-30 (2010). (pdf)

Post-injection spreading and trapping of CO2 in saline aquifers: Impact of the plume shape at the end of injection.

C. W. MacMinn and R. Juanes, Computational Geosciences, 13:483–491 (2009). (pdf)

Analytical Modeling of CO2 Migration in Saline Aquifers for Geological CO2 Storage.

C. W. MacMinn, S.M. Thesis, MIT (2008) (pdf)

cmac@alum.mit.edu / 77 Mass. Ave., Room 48-216 / Cambridge, MA 02139, USA