Welcome to the mfX research group!
We are a computational group at the University of Edinburgh investigating a range of multiscale flow problems that target important engineering challenges of the 21st century in health, transport, water and energy. Our research spans fundamental engineering science at the nano/micro/meso/macro scales, multiscale method development, highly parallel software development that run on supercomputers, and industry-focused engineering applications.
Examples of our recent work include: non-equilibrium gas transport through porous media for safer oil/gas reservoir management; nano/micro bubble cavitation dynamics for disease targeting; nano/micro-engineered surfaces with improved performance (e.g. anti-icing, marine drag reduction, nanotube water filtration membranes, evaporating cooling nanopipes); liquid-surface damage analysis; granular and pedestrian flow predictions.
We actively collaborate with researchers from the UK and around the world, and engage with various industrial companies to adapt our techniques for their problems.
We are delighted to welcome Zhaolun Li into mfX. Zhaolun joins us as a PhD student, having completed his MSc at TU Delft. He will be developing machine learning potentials for studying thermal problems at solid-liquid interfaces. Welcome Zhaolun!
Congratulations to Pengxu Chen who won the Early Career category in the ARCHER2 Image Competition 2025!
His winning entry, “Ice is born in vibrating nanopores”, visualises ice nucleation in supercooled water confined within a nanopore with a vibrating wall. The molecular dynamics simulations were performed using LAMMPS on ARCHER2.
Congratulations to Abdullah El-Rifai, Sarah Davidson, Yichong Chen, and Shaokang Li who all graduated with their PhDs on 9 July 2025!
We wish them all the best in their future careers!
Our group has been at hard at work, with four new papers published in the last month!
Pengxu published his first PhD paper on resolving the mechanisms of acoustic-wave-induced ice nucleation in Nanoscale, along with Rohit and Saikat.
Abdullah published his second PhD paper in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics on spectral mechanisms for heat transfer in solid/liquid interfaces, in the presence of a liquid-vapour meniscus, with Rohit and Sree Hari.
Patrick publsihed his third paper on surface roughness effects on heterogeneous vapour bubble nucleation in Journal of Chemical Physics, along with Rohit and Duncan.
And finally, Duncan published his most recent work in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, investigating ionic adsorption on bulk nanobubbles, questioning one of the leading theories for nanobubble stability, with Patrick and Livio.
Stay tuned for more research articles, exploring the beyond the limits of classical thermodynamic understanding in multiscale fluids!
We are delighted to announce that Shaokang Li passed his PhD viva with minor corrections! His work concerns molecular kinetic modelling of non-equilibrium evaporating flows at liquid-vapour interfaces.
Congratulations again to Dr Shaokang Li, who will be joining Prof. Yonghao Zhang in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.