Multiscale Research & Engineering Laboratory (MREL) is a research group of Prof. Shalabh C. Maroo in the L. C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, Syracuse University. The group's research interests are highly multidisciplinary, in the areas of multi-scale transport phenomenon, thermal management, and bio-mechanical systems with a focus on energy and water desalination, and an emphasis on using the fundamentals of nano-science and nano-technology to build efficient macro-scale mechanical systems.

News                                                                   

7/15/23: Durgesh publishes in Advanced Materials Interfaces: "Device-Scale Nanochannel Evaporator for High Heat Flux Dissipation" (Open Access)

5/13/23: Prof. Maroo is promoted to Full Professor.

5/4/23: Prof. Maroo and MREL awarded 2023 SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellows grant, which is funded through NY State's Department of Economic Development (DED).

5/2/23: Prof. Maroo receives MAE Department's award for "Excellence in Education". The award is selected by the students of Pi Tau Sigma and Sigma Gamma Tau, and funded by generous gift from Filtertech. "I feel very honored, many thanks to all the students!"

4/20/23: Durgesh, Maheswar and An publish in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces: "Dropwise Condensation in Ambient on a Depleted Lubricant-Infused Surface" (Open Access)

4/15/23: Sajag's paper published in Applied Thermal Engineering: "Single Bubble Nucleation in Water-Filled 59-nm Nanochannel"

3/15/23: Durgesh is a winner of the 2023 All University Doctoral Prize!

3/13/23: Dr. Durgesh Ranjan joins University of Florida as a postdoc. Congratulations Durgesh!

3/01/23: Durgesh successfully defends his PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Durgesh Ranjan!

12/7/22: Durgesh and An publish in Chemical Engineering Journal: "Durable and regenerative superhydrophobic surface using porous nanochannels"

7/5/22: Manish's paper published in Molecular Simulation: "Molecular dynamics simulation of bubble nucleation in hydrophilic nanochannels by surface heating"

5/13/22: Sajag is a winner of the All University Doctoral Prize!

5/04/22: Prof. Maroo and MREL awarded ONR funding on "Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Thin Liquid Film in Embedded Oscillating Heat Pipes with Novel Coatings"

4/22/22: Sajag and An's research on solar photovoltaics cooling covered in PV Magazine

3/28/22: Sajag and An's paper accepted for publication in ACS Energy & Fuels: "Thermal Management of Photovoltaics using Porous Nanochannels" (Open Access)

3/25/22: Durgesh wins 1st place in oral presentation competition in 'Energy, Environment and Smart Materials' topic at 2022 ECS Research Day!

2/22/22: Sajag and An's paper accepted for publication in Journal of Colloid and Interface Science: "Disjoining Pressure Driven Transpiration of Water in a Simulated Tree"

1/25/22: Durgesh and An publish in Cell Reports Physical Science: "Vapor Generation via Porous Nanochannel Wicks" (Open Access)

1/4/22: Sajag successfully defends his PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Sajag Poudel!

12/01/21: Dr. Manish Gupta joins Future Inc. as Machine Learning Engineer! He was interning there post graduation. Congratulations Dr. Gupta!

11/20/21: Sajag secures a post-doc position at Argonne National Lab starting January 2022. Congratulations Sajag!

8/30/21: An, Sajag and Manish publish in Nano Letters: "Disjoining Pressure of Water in Nanochannels" (Open Access)

7/29/21: Manish successfully defends his PhD dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Manish Gupta!

7/27/21: Dr. An Zou will be joining MiTeGen as R&D scientist in August 2021 . Congratulations An!

7/20/21: MREL awarded NSF INTERN grant for Sajag to do a research internship at Oak Ridge National Lab.

7/01/21: MREL co-awarded NSF IUCRC Phase I grant on Solid-State Electric Power Storage: https://www.greenceps.com/.

4/14/21: An publishes in Physics of Fluids: "Nano-Confinement Effects on Liquid Pressure".

12/28/20: Sajag and An publish in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces: "Droplet Evaporation on Porous Nanochannels for High Heat Flux Dissipation".

6/12/20: Sajag and An publish in Langmuir: "Evaporation Dynamics in Buried Nanochannels with Micropores".

4/19/20: An and Manish publish in Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters: "Transpiration Mechanism in Confined Nanopores".

3/9/20: Manish and An publish in Applied Physics Letters: "Onset and Critical Radius of Heterogeneous Bubble Nucleation".

9/5/19: An and Sajag publish in Langmuir: "Pool Boiling Coupled with Nanoscale Evaporation using Buried Nanochannels".

8/29/19: Sajag and An publish in Journal of Physical Chemistry C: "Wicking in Cross-Connected Buried Nanochannels".

6/15/19: Prof. Maroo publishes and presents in 2019 ASEE conference on "Positive Statistical Impact of Online Homework Assignments on Exam and Overall Course Grades".

6/25/18: An and Manish publish in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters: "Origin, Evolution, and Movement of Microlayer in Pool Boiling".

4/23/18: Prof. Maroo and MREL awarded ONR funding on "Phase Change in High-Density Confined Liquids for Thermal Management"

12/8/17: Sumith's paper accepted for publication in Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling: "A direct two-dimensional pressure formulation in molecular dynamics".

7/1/17: Prof. Maroo and MREL awarded NSF funding on "Experimental validation of molecular simulation of water transport across zeolite membranes of nanoscale-thickness" (Award # 1705752)

5/13/17: Prof. Maroo is granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor.

3/15/17: Geoffrey has been named a 2017 Syracuse University Scholar, the highest undergraduate academic honor the University bestows!

10/12/16: An's paper published in Langmuir: "Early Evaporation of Microlayer for Boiling Heat Transfer Enhancement". We introduce a new mechanism to enhance boiling heat transfer and critical heat flux (CHF). A ~120% enhancement in CHF is obtained with only an ~18% increase in surface area.

8/17/16: Sumith's paper published in Langmuir: "Origin of Surface-Driven Passive Liquid Flows".

7/7/16: Congratulations to Sumith YD for successfully graduating with his PhD degree! Dr. YD will be joining University of Georgia as a post-doc in August 2016.

6/30/16: Sumith's paper accepted for publication in Heat Transfer Engineering

5/25/16: Geoffrey has been selected by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation to join the elite group of Astronaut Scholars for the 2016/2017 academic school year!

4/14/16: An is a winner of the All University Doctoral Prizes!

3/31/16: Geoffrey receives an Honorable Mention for 2016 Goldwater Scholarship!

3/4/16: Geoffrey wins Crown Award funding to support his Capstone project (on boiling heat transfer enhancement) from the Renee Crown University Honors Program!

2/29/16: An's work on steady state vapor bubble featured in Physics Today!

2/3/16: An's paper published in Scientific Reports: "Steady State Vapor Bubble in Pool Boiling"

Dec 2015: Congratulations to An Zou for successfully graduating with his PhD degree! Dr. Zou will be joining University of Michigan as a post-doc in January 2016.

9/3/15: Sumith's paper published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters: "Surface-Heating Algorithm for Water at Nanoscale"

1/15/15: Dr. Maroo and MREL awarded NSF CAREER on "Experimental and Numerical Study of Nanoscale Evaporation Heat Transfer for Passive-Flow Driven High-Heat Flux Devices" (Award # 1454450)

6/11/14: MREL awarded NSF funding on "EAGER: Experimental Determination of Non-Evaporating Film Thickness in Pool Boiling" (Award # 1445946)

4/18/14: Nikolay wins the 2014-2015 Remembrance Scholarship!

11/25/13: An's paper published in Applied Physics Letters: "Critical height of micro/nano structures for pool boiling heat transfer enhancement"

5/16/13: Paper published in Journal of Heat Transfer (special issue for 75th anniversary of ASME)

4/5/13: An wins the MAE Research Poster Competition at the 2013 Nunan Lecture & Research Day for his experimental work on boiling heat transfer enhancement!

4/4/13: Nikolay wins the 2013 second place prize for the Norma Slepecky Undergraduate Research Prize for his research work on the Tobacco Mosaic Virus!

3/6/13: Paper accepted in Nano Letters: "Wettability of Graphene"

2/15/13: MREL awarded NSF funding on "Collaborative Research: Transport and Separation through Virus-Structured Nanoporous Membranes" (Award # 1264949)

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Energy & Thermal Management

Critical heat flux (CHF) enhancement by surface modifications has been an extensively researched area in pool boiling heat transfer. We report a new fundamental mechanism of CHF enhancement where nano/micro ridges are fabricated on surfaces to fragment and evaporate the metastable non-evaporating/adsorbed film present at the base of a bubble in the contact line region (figure shown on right). CHF increase of ~125% is obtained with only ~40% increase in surface area. An analytical model is extended to explain the CHF enhancement and to determine the average non-evaporating film thickness, which serves as the critical height for nano/micro structures for pool boiling heat transfer enhancement.

Novel cooling technologies are required which can meet increasing cooling demands and enable major advancements in various energy systems including concentrated photovoltaics, integrated chip cooling, boiling water reactors. At MREL, we are working towards the concept and application of nano-thin film evaporation, which holds promise of significantly higher heat fluxes over present state-of-the-art cooling techniques, via simulations and experiments. The potential of ultra-high heat flux (~ 100 MW/m2) and high absolute negative pressure in nano-thin films has been shown in simulations. Key challenges lie in creating nano-geometries and heat flux supply mechanism in experiments, and modeling evaporation of water in molecular simulations.

The moving contact line is a three-phase phenomenon where the liquid-vapor interface meets the solid surface. The dynamics and thermal transport along the contact line is of particular importance as it is multi-scale in nature and governs the heat transfer in nucleate boiling. We are interested in developing multi-scale phase-change simulation methods, which couple molecular and continuum domains, to gain fundamental insight into the three-phase contact line region.

Water Desalination & Filtration

Water is an essential resource for human survival, but projections say that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in regions with absolute water scarcity. Water is practically unlimited, but at the cost and energy required for desalination, and thus is directly related to increases in energy demand. MREL is involved in studying the transport of water molecules in sub-nanometer zeolite pores for efficient water desalination. MFI zeolites, which are porous aluminosilicate minerals, have a pore diameter of about 0.56 nm. As the size of a water molecule is roughly 0.28-0.3 nm in diameter, the pore size restricts the flow of water into a molecular chain presenting an extraordinary physical behavior.

Electric double layer (EDL) holds immense importance in nanometer and sub-nanometer pores. EDL consists of surface charge layer and diffuse layer when an ionic liquid comes in contact with a charged surface. Overlapping EDLs can be obtained in nanopores and ion exclusion can be achieved via charge repulsion. Specific ion repulsion can be tailored to achieve desalination and water filtration. We are interested in performing fundamental study of EDLs via molecular simulations. Other topics of interest include utilization of solar energy and enhancing efficiency of conventional desalination systems.

Bio-Mechanical Systems

Nature possesses various extremely efficient mechanisms through the use of biological molecules at nanoscales. One of MREL's research goals is understanding and mimicking these biological processes into efficient mechanical systems via molecular simulations, nano-fabrication and nano-metrology. We are currently involved in investigating transport and separation phenomena through the protein channel of the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) via molecular analysis and simulations. The TMV is a rigid, hollow, rod-shaped plant virus with a 4-nm diameter central pore defined by 2130 helical coat proteins wrapped around a single strand of RNA. It is an extremely stable bio-molecule, withstanding temperatures of up to 60 degrees C and a pH range of 2 to 11.

"A biological system can be exceedingly small. Many of the cells are very tiny, but they are very active; they manufacture various substances; they walk around; they wiggle; and they do all kinds of marvelous things—all on a very small scale. Also, they store information. Consider the possibility that we too can make a thing very small, which does what we want—that we can manufacture an object that maneuvers at that level!" - Dr. Richard P. Feynman, 1959

"Doing it nature's way has the potential to change the way we make materials, harness energy, store information... Nature would provide the models: solar cells copied from leaves, steely fibers woven spider-style, computers that signal like cells.." - Janine M. Benyus in Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

Syracuse University


L. C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science


Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering


Syracuse Biomaterials Institute Facilities


Cornell NanoScale Science & Technology Facility (CNF) Lab and Equipment


Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) Facilities


There is plenty of room at the bottom - Dr. Richard P. Feynman


Gromacs - A molecular dynamics package

Links

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