Jingcun Fan

• Ph.D.
• PostDoc at Stanford University

We investigate the underlying mechanism of capillary force balance at the contact line. In particular, we offer a novel approach to describe and quantify the capillary force on the liquid in coexistence with its vapor phase, which is crucial in wetting and spreading dynamics. Its relation with the interface tension is elucidated. The proposed model...

Evaporation-driven liquid flow through nanochannels has attracted extensive attention over recent years due to its applications in mass and heat transfer as well as energy harvesting. A more comprehensive understanding is still expected to reveal the underlying mechanisms and quantitatively elucidate the transport characteristics of this phenomenon...

Assembling monolayers into a bilayer system unlocks the rotational free degree of van der Waals (vdW) homo/heterostructure, which enables the building of twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG) that possesses novel electronic, optical and mechanical properties. Previous methods for preparation of homo/heterstructures inevitably leave the polymer residues o...

Microstructural heterogeneities arising from molecular clusters directly affect the nonlinear thermodynamic properties of supercritical fluids. We present a physical model to elucidate the relation between energy exchange and heterogeneous cluster dynamics during the transition from liquidlike to gaslike conditions. By analyzing molecular-dynamics...

Nanofluidics holds significant potential across diverse fields, including energy, environment, and biotechnology. Nevertheless, the fundamental driving mechanisms on the nanoscale remain elusive, underscoring the crucial importance of exploring nanoscale driving techniques. This study introduces a Laplace pressure‐driven flow method that is accurat...

Interactions at the oil/brine/rock interfaces play a pivotal role in the mobility of crude oil within reservoir matrices. Unraveling the microscopic mechanisms of these interactions is crucial for ion-engineered water flooding in secondary and tertiary oil recovery. In this study, the occurrence and transport behavior of crude oil in kaolinite nano...

Understanding the slip behaviors on the graphene surfaces is crucial in the field of nanofluidics and nanofluids. The reported values of the slip length in the literature from both experimental measurements and simulations are quite scattered. The presence of low concentrations of functional groups may have a greater impact on the flow behavior tha...

Mass transport through the nanoporous medium is ubiquitous in nature and industry. Unlike the macroscale transport phenomena which have been well understood by the theory of continuum mechanics, the relevant physics and mechanics on the nanoscale transport still remain mysterious. Recent developments in fabrication of slit-like nanocapillaries with...

In-situ conversion process (ICP) appears to be a promising approach to enhance hydrocarbon recovery of shale reservoirs. During the ICP, the pore-networks gradually generate underground and serve as the conduits for the storage and transport of hydrocarbon, which finally decides the recovery ability of the reservoir. Reactive molecular dynamics sim...

Desalination can help to alleviate the fresh-water crisis facing the world. Thermally driven membrane distillation is a promising way to purify water from a variety of saline and polluted sources by utilizing low-grade heat. However, membrane distillation membranes suffer from limited permeance and wetting owing to the lack of precise structural co...

In this work, we explored how the structure of monolayer water confined between two graphene sheets is coupled to its dynamic behavior. Our molecular dynamics simulations show that there is a remarkable interrelation between the friction of confined water with two walls and its structure under extreme confinement. When the water molecules formed a...

This work presents the comprehensive review on the multiscale transport simulations of shale gas in micro-/nanoporous media from the molecular- to the pore-scale. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.0c03276

Enhanced gas recovery (EGR) is believed to be a promising technology to improve the production of shale gas reservoirs and simultaneously reduce the emissions of greenhouse gas via the injection (sequestration) of carbon dioxide, to which great effort has been devoted by scholars. However, traditional investigations are generally limited to the ide...

We investigate the capillary force balance at the contact line on rough solid surfaces and in two-liquid systems. Our results confirm that solid-liquid interactions perpendicular to the interface have a significant influence on the lateral component of the capillary force exerted on the contact line. Surface roughness of the solid substrate reduces...

As the typical unconventional reservoir, shale gas is believed to be the most promising alternative for the conventional resources in future energy patterns, attracting more and more attention throughout the world. Generally, the majority of shale gas is trapped within the tight shale rock with ultralow porosity (<10%) and ultrasmall pore size (as...

This research reveals the roughness factor-dependent transport, characteristic of shale gas through amorphous kerogen nanopores. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.0c02456

During the past decades, shale gas has been recognized as the promising unconventional resources for global energy storages and clear understanding of the gas transport characteristic within nonporous shale organic matter (i.e., kerogen) is fundamental for the effective development of shale reservoirs. In this regard, previous studies are generally...

Previous attempts to characterize shale gas transport in nanopores are not fully successful due to that the presence of water within shale reservoirs is generally overlooked. In addition, shale is known as wettability-varying (hydrophilic and hydrophobic) rock depending on various components and maturity grades. Herein, towards this end, we perform...

There has been long-standing academic interest in the study of ion transport in nanochannel systems, owing to its vast implications in understanding the nature of numerous environmental, biological and chemical processes. Here, we investigate ion transport through two-dimensional slits using molecular dynamics simulations. These slits with angstrom...

Structural and dynamic properties of ions confined in nanoslits are crucial to understand the fundamental mechanism underlying a wide range of chemical and biological phenomena. K⁺ and Cl⁻ show similar ion mobilities in a bulk aqueous solution, whereas they exhibit a remarkable difference when transporting through an angstrom-scale channel. Our mol...

Polymer flooding is a promising chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method, which realizes more efficient extraction in porous formations characterized with nanoscale porosity and complicated interfaces. Understanding the molecular mechanism of viscoelastic polymer EOR in nanopores is of great significance for the advancement of oil exploitation....

Understanding the flow characteristics of shale gas especially in nanopores is extremely important for the exploitation. Here, we perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the hydrodynamics of methane in nanometre-sized slit pores. Using equilibrium molecular dynamics (EMD), the static properties including density distribution and...