Mankind's most urgent technological challenge is the development of
an energy supply that will continue to meet our needs while preserving
our environment. Our research activities are focused on strategic
technologies to address this issue. We are pursing both innovations in
emerging technologies and improvements to existing ones.
Technical areas spanned by our group's research include: automotive power plants and ocean propulsion systems;
fossil fuel combustion; wind power; solar energy; electrochemical energy
storage; thermoelectric technologies; fuel cells; hydrogen production and storage; refrigeration; thermohydraulics
of power systems; energy efficiency in a wide range of systems; ocean energy; certain aspects of nuclear energy; hybrid engines;
thermal management of electronics; and energy efficient buildings. Our work on these subjects involves both
creative synthesis and engineering design.
Our efforts in technology are grounded in a deep appreciation of the fundamental sciences, including research in these areas: thermodynamics of coupled phenomena; thermochemical and
electrochemical reaction; transport phenomena, including heat and mass transfer and electrochemical phenomena; solid-state phenomena, including photo, thermal, and electrical
aspects; nanosciences; surface phenomena; deep ocean processes; and various aspects of fluid
dynamics. The tools we use include computation, experimentation, and analysis.
The hyperlinks for our labs and faculty members lead to more detailed descriptions of our research activities.
