When surfaces matter: using nano-scaled surface features to control macro-scale transport

In his presentation, Prof. Rosengarten will show some of his group's recent work on a simple and cheap chemical method to create superhydrophilic copper surfaces. This method is applied to copper foams to significantly enhance capillarity- primarily for heat pipe wicks. He will also discuss other work he has done on tailoring surfaces to alter their radiative properties to act as selective solar absorbers, having high solar absorption and very low emission the in the IR. Finally he will demonstrate how liquid/solid surfaces are very important in nanoparticle microfluidic separation.

Professor Gary Rosengarten is head of the Laboratory for Innovative Fluid Thermal Systems (LIFTS) in the School of Engineering at RMIT University, and Adjunct Professor in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Prior to joining RMIT University in 2012, he spent 6 years at UNSW running the heat transfer group, and being head of the thermal fluids research area. He also has 2 years experience in consulting for sustainable building design. He has first class honours degrees in Mechanical Engineering and in Physics from Monash University, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of NSW. He won the inaugural American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Solar Energy Division Graduate Student award in 2000. In the last 6 years he has been awarded over $5.5million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency for various solar projects. He has approximately 150 refereed papers in fields ranging from Solar Energy to Biotechnology.

Supplementary talk:

Heat transfer for free surface jet cooling of hot steel samples
Dr.-Ing. Axel Sielaff, Technsiche Universität Darmstadt, Institut für Technsiche Thermodynamik