From Insights into Phase-Change Heat and Mass Transfer to Meeting Basic Human Needs

Srinivas Garimella discusses how insights into phase-change heat and mass transfer and innovations in heat-driven cycles can complement renewable electricity in decarbonisation. He presents sorption-based space conditioning driven by renewable energy or waste heat, including waste-heat-driven sorption heat pumps for cooling in severe climates at kW to MW scales; heat pumping for commercial dryers; diurnal and seasonal thermal storage; thermochemical adsorption storage to support vapour-compression heat pumps; and adsorption chillers driven by biomass, solar or waste heat for cold chains where electricity is unreliable. He also outlines combined space conditioning and water purification, power plant cooling without water-intensive towers, next-generation nuclear reactor designs, sorbent-loaded microchannel fibres for carbon capture, and water and energy conservation in aluminium ingot casting.