Sungwoo Yang, Research scientist
Enrollment: Unlimited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 01/27
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Chemistry is a key to controlling the structure of a material, which ultimately determines the way that various carriers, such as photons, phonons, electrons, ions and molecules, propagate through materials. In this class, I will show how understanding the underlying physics and chemistry of porous materials can unlock a variety of sustainable energy applications including thermal energy storage, water harvesting from air, and solar-thermal energy conversion. The focus of this class is on three emerging porous materials: 1) metal organic frameworks (MOFs), 2) 3-dimensional graphene (3dGR), and 3) aerogels.
By combining MOFs and 3dGR, we have demonstrated high thermal energy density (495 Wh kg-1 and 218 Wh L) at the component level. Furthermore, we demonstrated that by optimizing a water harvesting device with MOFs, ~2.8 L kg-1 at a relative humidity of 20% can be obtained – addressing the increasing problem of water scarcity.
Finally, the chemistry and physics of aerogels will be discussed. This thermally insulating and optically transparent aerogel has great promise for solar-thermal conversion applications. We demonstrated tempurates of 240 °C under un-concentrated solar illumination in ambient conditions, which can replace conventional heat systems based on natural gas combustion.
I will conclude by sharing future outlook about the critical role that chemistry and mechncial engineering inter-play for developing advanced materials for sustainable energy conversion.
Sponsor(s): Mechanical Engineering
Contact: Sungwoo Yang, 7-034, 919 724-0662, SWYANG@MIT.EDU
| Feb/02 | Thu | 10:00AM-11:00AM | 7-034B |
| Feb/03 | Fri | 10:00AM-11:00AM | 7-034B |
Sungwoo Yang - Research scientist