Distinguished scholar discusses thermal, solar energy at 2016 Schaller Lecture

 

The fall 2016 Alwin Schaller Distinguished Lecture featured a scientist and scholar renowned for his work in the field of thermal energy. 

 

Professor Gang Chen presented his lecture, “Materials and Devices for Efficient Solar and Thermal Energy Utilization,” on August 30 in the NSCA auditorium. 

 

Chen began his talk with a review on the grand challenges and opportunities faced in fundamentally understanding micro/nanoscale transport in order to develop better materials and devices for thermal and solar energy utilization, including the topic of thermoelectric energy conversion. 

 

He discussed the progress made in understanding phonon and electron transport, designing and synthesizing new and improved materials, and building devices for improving the efficiency of solar and thermal energy conversion to electricity.  

 

Chen introduced a thermogalvonic regenerative cycle he developed that converts heat into electricity at relatively high efficiencies using batteries and low-grade heat sources, emphasizing philosophical differences in thermoelectric and thermogalvonic energy conversion technologies—one based on spatial and the other on temporal thermodynamic cycles.  

 

He then discussed how to exploit transport physics in low-dimensional systems to turn polymers from poor to good heat conductors and his group’s effort to develop scalable manufacturing processes for highly thermally conductive polymers.  

  

Chen is the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and is the director of the Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC Center)—an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the Department of Energy. He obtained his PhD degree from University of California, Berkeley, in 1993, and was a faculty member at Duke University and UCLA before joining MIT in 2001.  

 

He has won numerous prestigious awards and fellowships during his career. He is a fellow of AAAS, APS, and ASME, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2010.

 

The lecture honors Alwin Schaller, an engineering pioneer and civic leader who completed his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1907 and his master’s degree in 1912. In the early stages of pressure flooding in oil fields, he studied the effect of adding heat on secondary recovery. His was the first article on the subject ever published in a technical journal, and led to the widespread adoption of thermal recovery.

 

He established the Alwin Schaller Endowment Fund in memory of the late mechanical engineering professor George Alfred Goodenough, whom he described as “a major force” in shaping his career. Recognized as an expert in the field of thermodynamics, Professor Goodenough’s interest in specific heat values of gases led him to what was perhaps the first sound thermodynamic analysis of internal combustion engine processes.