CEESI Colloquium, Nov. 18th, Dr. Zhifeng Ren
Dr. Zhifeng Ren, PhD
Professor of Physics, Boston College
Friday, November 18th, 2011 at 4 PM
Photonics Building, Room 205
Why Are Nano Materials Useful for Enhancing Energy Conversion?
Energy demand is more and more, but the natural sources for providing the needed energy are shrinking and also unfortunately polluting the earth. How can we efficiently utilize the abundant solar energy at low cost and without pollution is our responsibility to our children.
Nanomaterials have many potential applications in energy conversion systems due to their special structural and physical properties. Such applications often require materials to be manufactured at large scale and low cost. I will discuss the manufacturing of nanostructured bulk thermoelectric materials at large scale and their improved thermoelectric properties by a low cost ball milling and hot pressing process. Solar energy is converted into electricity at low cost using the improved nanostructured thermoelectric materials.
In the second part, I will talk about some new concepts including nano coaxial cables and super-electrode for high efficiency conversion of solar energy to electricity.
Dr. Zhifeng Ren, a Professor of Physics at Boston College, PhD in Condensed Matter Physics in 1990 from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences; a fellow of the American Physical Society; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; an expert on materials synthesis, characterizations, and applications, especially nanomaterials for efficient energy conversions including thermoelectrics and photovoltaics; published over 240 peer-reviewed papers with a total citations of 12,000 and hold 22 patents; co-founded three companies (NanoLab, Inc.; Solasta, Inc.; and GMZ Energy, Inc.); a recipient of the 2008 R&D 100 Award, and ranked as the 49th of the world’s 500,000 materials scientists based on the citations of papers published from 2000-2010.
