CERC Newsletter

SUMMER 2019

CLEAN ENERGY NEWS

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

MOTIVATED TO INNOVATE P reserving nature, providing water to thirsty communities, and meeting power demand with new technologies are all goals of four Clean Energy Research Center doctoral students finishing up their research here at USF this year. And whether their paths started in India, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh or New York, a sense of responsibility led them here to innovate.

Here are their stories:

CERC leader honored for lifetime achievement

Eydhah Almatrafi

“Water is life,” says Eydhah Almatrafi, 32, a faculty member of the college of engineering at the King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia who came to USF to research solar desalination. He wants to help meet the high demand for fresh water in the world, especially in the Middle East and North Africa.

His key learning from USF? “Think global, act local.”

Eydhah worked at ARAMCO and SABIC oil companies in Saudi Arabia before winning a fellowship that changed his path from industry to academia. He has a bachelor’s from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and a master’s from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He is now completing a doctorate; all of his degrees have been in mechanical engineering.

As he finds that desalination research please see STUDENT RESEARCHERS, page 2

Arun Kumar Narasimhan, 30, wants to improve scroll expanders to aid small-scale electricity generation.

photo courtesy of Eydhah Almatrafi

Eydhah Almatrafi, 32, is studying solar desalination to ease water shortages in Africa and the Mideast.

Dr. Yogi Goswami, a USF chemical and biomedical engineering professor and director of CERC, receives the College of Engineering’s 2019 Engineering Excellence Lifetime Achievement Award, Page 3

Key research projects Ibrahim Azad, 33, is working to improve the design of micro/nanodevices, left. photo by RYAN WAKEFIELD

List of the types of research conducted at CERC, Page 4

Our mission and contacts Learn more about the Clean Energy Research Center and how to contact our directors and staff.

Page 4

List of affiliates photo by RYAN WAKEFIELD

photo by RYAN WAKEFIELD

Francesca Moloney, 26, is researching solar thermal and geothermal energy storage.

See which faculty are affiliated with the center, Page 4

STUDENT RESEARCHERS, from Page 1

is gaining importance, Eydhah is focusing on solar desalination systems, membrane desalination, thermal desalination, and the supercritical-organic Rankine cycle, which is getting more attention in the area of low-grade heat source power generation. He is studying coupling a supercritical-organic Rankine cycle to multi-effects desalination assisted by a mechanical vapor compressor, which lowers specific thermal power consumption.

His most memorable experiences at the university include participating in USF graduate research day and four international conferences on engineering and energy.

He plans to fulfill his mission to “act local” by next teaching courses in thermodynamics, heat transfer, designing solar power plants and desalination at King Abdulaziz University as well as leading the solar-desalination program in Saudi Arabia by working at a desalination research center.

Francesca Moloney

Francesca Moloney, 26, is interested in renewable energy because “I love the great outdoors.”

“I know renewable energy is the future to protect the beauty that surrounds us,” she says.

Francesca was born in Massachusetts but grew up in upstate New York. She has a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Florida Gulf Coast University and has been working on a doctorate in mechanical engineering at USF since 2014.

Her research has focused on creating a hybrid system with solar thermal and geothermal energy with thermal energy storage while using innovative thermodynamic cycle configurations to enhance power output.

At USF, “Most of the time, research never goes as expected. It is an adventure, but a rewarding one,” she said.

She found that a low temperature source, such as geothermal energy, can be effectively integrated into a power cycle operating from a higher temperature source, such as solar thermal energy.

Thermal energy storage extends the availability of a high temperature source to convert power in a more efficient power cycle at a higher capacity rather than relying on only geothermal energy and a lower efficiency and lower work output cycle.

Now in the final stages of her doctoral

Photo by RYAN WAKEFIELD

Three of CERC’s graduating doctoral researchers stand together: Arun Kumar Narasimhan, left, Francesca Moloney and Ibrahim Azad.

research, Francesca has already accepted a position as a distribution engineer in Fort Myers at Enercon, a company specializing in energy design and planning projects. She ultimately would like to help expand renewable energy to enhance efficiency and implementation.

At USF, “I enjoyed collaborating on various research projects with my colleagues at CERC. Everyone is very bright and comes from a different background, which was exciting to work with. I learned very much from them.

“I also had the opportunity to share my work at middle and high schools and teach students about graduate school,” she added. “It was amazing working with these motivated students and helping them to think about the future in terms of energy usage and their personal career and education goals.

She added: “What motivates me is that although my research cannot make us rely solely on renewable energy, it is one piece of the puzzle in reducing and eliminating global carbon dioxide emissions. I believe we can achieve net zero emissions, and I want to be part of that transformation.”

Arun Kumar Narasimhan Arun Kumar Narasimhan wants to help meet the demand for electricity in rural areas of developing countries.

About 1.3 billion people around the world are without electricity, he noted, and 90 percent of that number are from India and sub-Saharan African countries. His rural hometown in southern India had frequent power outages, and he put solar panels on his family’s rooftop to power the home.

But not everyone in his town could afford this, he said, and he wanted to help find a way toward grid independence in rural areas.

“I want to work on addressing societal

problems like rural electrification and reducing our carbon footprint through sustainable practices,” he said.

Arun, 30, moved to the United States in 2013 to further his studies. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from SSN College of Engineering and a master’s degree in energy and environmental engineering from VIT University, both in India.

He is working with thermodynamic cycles and small-scale power generation, and is receiving his doctoral degree at USF in chemical engineering.

At CERC, he has been designing scroll expanders that convert solar heat to power and mapping their performance for small-scale power generation (less than 50 kilowatts), which is more suitable for localized electricity in rural areas that have higher solar resource availability due to their latitude.

Scroll expanders are more suited and efficient for small-scale power generation than other types of expanders and turbines. Certain working fluids allow compact design of scroll expanders, thereby reducing the leakage and improving the overall performance, he said.

Arun is searching for jobs in corporate research and academia, particularly in the areas of small-scale power generation and building energy modeling and efficiency.

His most memorable experience at USF was “fascinating lectures that taught me how to teach” and “reducing the carbon footprint of the campus through sustainable projects” such as installing LEDs at the Biosciences building, streetlights in parking lots, and a 400kW solar PV power plant at the Marshall Center, he said.

At USF he learned how to address and solve a research problem, to See STUDENT RESEARCHERS, page 3

STUDENT RESEARCHERS, from Page 2

Goswami’s lifetime of achievement is honored

communicate and to present ideas clearly, as well as improve his research writing techniques. He is motivated by “solving research problems and challenging work.’’

Ibrahim Azad

From taking apart remote controls to finding the magnets inside motors as a child in Bangladesh, Ibrahim Azad has always been interested in smaller devices. Now Ibrahim, 33, has a chance to broaden his scope with his research on micro/nano devices.

Ibrahim is from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and has a bachelor’s and master’s in applied physics, electronics, and communication engineering from the University of Dhaka. He came to USF in 2014 to work on a doctorate in electrical engineering. He and his wife are expecting their first child this summer as he completes his dissertation and searches for jobs that will allow him to work on improving micro/nano devices important for applications such as infrared sensing and solar energy harvesting.

“When I started my science learning, I was eager to know how things work, and my questions about electronic things pushed me to learn more about electrical engineering,” he says.

One device he has been working on is the antenna coupled diode rectifier (rectenna). A major application for the rectenna is energy harvesting, which is generating clean energy from surrounding electromagnetic waves.

Ibrahim found the rectenna could be the new technology for infrared detection that can address issues with current technologies. But, he says, there is still “lots of room to work on rectennae.”

His most valuable experiences at USF included discussing his work with colleagues where “I learned how to be patient in your tough times.”

He plans to work in research and development in the United States for a few years and then take his expertise home to guide engineering research in a university in Bangladesh, where he was previously a junior lecturer and where he said expertise is greatly needed because it is a developing country.

“I want to work in an environment where I can contribute to improve new technologies for future generations,” Ibrahim said.

Distinguished University Professor of chemical and biomedical engineering Yogi Goswami in April received the USF College of Engineering’s 2019 Engineering Excellence Lifetime Photo by MARK SCHREINER / WUSF PUBLIC MEDIA Achievement Award. Dr. Goswami, who in 2016 Dr. Yogi Goswami and the Molekule air purifier. was named to the Florida Inventor’s Hall of Fame, was named last October to the Florida 500, Florida’s most influential business leaders, in the While Professor Yogi Goswami holds 24 U.S. energy category. patents, including many related to solar energy, it’s Dr. Goswami was his creation of a device driven by the health of his recognized for his children that could end up as his most lasting legacy. pioneering contributions and technology The director of USF’s CERC has been development related to developing the Molekule air purifier for more than solar energy and indoor air 20 years. The impetus came when he and his wife quality. His contributions in found out their then-young son, Dilip, had asthma combined power/cooling and other allergies. cycles have impacted Now, Molekule has further strengthened its global research in a new ties to the Tampa Bay area by consolidating its class of thermodynamic manufacturing at a facility in Lakeland. Up until now, the company had used contractors around the cycles. He has invented nano-scale antenna country to make its air purifiers. The move brings technologies to convert the manufacturing facility closer to the company’s sunlight to power and research and development arm at USF’s Tampa thermal energy storage campus. The Polk County facility is expected to technologies. His indoor soon employ dozens of workers.

Dr. Goswami used patented solar technology that air technology targets pollutants including he developed at Tyndall Air Force Base to clean up viruses, bacteria, mold, the base’s contaminated ground water. “This is a airborne fumes and photo electrochemical oxidation (PECO) process,” allergens. he explained. “Any contaminants that are in the air, they just get destroyed and converted to basic elements that are supposed to be in the air.”

An LED light in the purifier simulates sunlight to create a chemical reaction in a replaceable filter that breaks down harmful molecules like allergens and chemicals. The purifier can trap pollutants up to 1,000 times smaller than what a high-efficiency particulate air filter (HEPA) catches, according to the company. The 2-foot-tall Molekule air purifier was named one of Time magazine’s “25 Best Inventions of 2017” and retails for $799 on Molekule’s website.

The purifier sold out seven times last year, another reason for consolidating manufacturing in one place, according to co-founder and chief operating officer Jaya Rao, Dr. Goswami’s daughter.

Dr. Goswami and part —Compiled from WUSF and Tampa Bay Times of his “Goswami Cycle.” reports.

Professor’s purifier to be manufactured in Lakeland

CERC AFFILIATE FACULTY Venkat Bhethanabotla, Ph.D., Professor, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Prasanta Kumar Biswas, Ph.D., Courtesy Professor, Electrical Engineering Jeffrey Cunningham, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Jamie Chilton, Ph.D., Instructor, Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Tapas Das, Ph.D., Professor, Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Sarina Ergas, Ph.D., Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Lingling Fan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Chris Ferekides, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering Andrew Hoff, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering Robert E. Hooker, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Business Babu Joseph, Ph.D., Professor, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Burton Krakow, Ph.D., Retired Research Associate John Kuhn, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Ashok Kumar, Ph.D., Professor, Mechanical Engineering Zhuo Lu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Zhixin Miao, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Don Morel, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering Wilfrido Moreno, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering Ajit Mujumdar, Ph.D., Instructor, Mechanical Engineering Mahshid Rahnamay Naeini, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering George Nolas, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor, Physics George Philippidis, Ph.D., Professor, Patel College for Global Sustainability Humberto Rodriguez Gutierrez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Physics Stanley Russell, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Architecture Rudy Schlaf, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering Paul Schnitzler, Ph.D., Retired Instructor II, Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Arthur Snider, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Electrical Engineering.

Sesha Srinivasan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Physics, Polytechnic University Mark Stewart, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Geosciences Arash Takshi, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Yasin Yilmaz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Yu Zhang, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Clean energy is green energy Florida has no substantial indigenous supply of fossil fuels but we do have solar and biomass resources. The Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) at the University of South Florida pursues research and development of new and environmentally clean energy systems.

See our website for a complete listing of our research, patents and publications: http://cerc.eng.usf.edu/ For more information, contact: CERC Directors: Dr. Elias K. Stefanakos estefana@usf.edu Dr. Yogi Goswami goswami@usf.edu Senior Research Scientist: Dr. Chand Jotshi chand1@usf.edu Laboratory Engineer and Manager: Tim Mead timead@usf.edu Publications Editor and Administrative Assistant: Carol Blair blair11@usf.edu

KEY RESEARCH PROJECTS • Environmentally clean energy systems • Solar thermal power • Photovoltaics • Concentrating solar power • Energy storage (phase change materials, thermal storage, batteries, supercapacitors) • Photocatalytic detoxification/

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disinfection technologies Hydrogen production and solid state storage New efficient thermodynamic cycles Solar energy conversion via rectifying antennae Biomass conversion/ biofuels