Asegun Henry

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Asegun Sekou Famake Henry is a Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research is focused on energy storage, heat transfer, and phonons.

Contents

Early life and education

Henry was born in Tallahassee, Florida, to Anthony Henry and Oare Dozier-Henry, both former professors at Florida A&M University (FAMU); his father is a middle school teacher and adjunct professor of political science and his mother is a professor of adult education. [1] At a young age, his parents exposed him to West African and African-American culture. At ten years old, he started playing the djembe. Henry also excelled in school and was admitted into a state program for gifted children. [1] After graduating from high school, he attended FAMU and graduated with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. [2] Working under Gang Chen, he earned his master's and doctorate degrees in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2009. [2]

Career and research

After graduating from MIT, Henry worked as a postdoc in materials science at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researching derivations of thermal conductivity from first principles, and later at Northwestern University, where he investigated the thermodynamic properties of oxides. [2] [3] He received research fellowships from the Lemelson Foundation, the Department of Energy, the UNCF, and Ford Foundation. [3]

In 2011, Henry was a fellow of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy [3] before he joined Georgia Institute of Technology in April 2012 as assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. [2]

In 2016, Henry earned the National Science Foundation’s Career Award with a grant to study heat conduction via vibrations referred to as phonons. Using sonification, his research hopes to create an educational app to represent the unique vibrations of the elements in the periodic table as sounds audible to the human ear and to study the interaction between the different modes of vibration. [4] [5]

On January 23, 2017, Henry’s team at Georgia Tech also achieved the highest recorded operating temperature, 1,200 °C (1,470 K), for a liquid pump which operated continuously for 72 hours. [6] The achievement was recognized by the Guinness World Records. [7] The pump is made entirely of ceramic materials and was able to pump molten tin heated to very high temperatures. [8] [9]

Henry also conducts research into cost-effective methods to store renewable energy. [10] In a 2018 paper published Energy & Environmental Science , his team described a storage system, TEGS-MPV (thermal energy grid storage using multi-junction photovoltaics) and given the moniker "Sun in a box" in media sources. TEGS-MPV uses molten silicon as a battery to store energy as heat, ready to be delivered into an electrical grid on demand. [11] [12] [13] The system is slated to operate at costs significantly lower than existing electrical energy storage systems. [12] [14]

Related Research Articles

Energy storage Captured energy for usage at a later time

Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery. Energy comes in multiple forms including radiation, chemical, gravitational potential, electrical potential, electricity, elevated temperature, latent heat and kinetic. Energy storage involves converting energy from forms that are difficult to store to more conveniently or economically storable forms.

Solar energy Radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies

Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, solar architecture, molten salt power plants and artificial photosynthesis.

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning Technology of indoor and vehicular environmental comfort

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the technology of indoor and vehicular environmental comfort. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HVAC system design is a subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and heat transfer. "Refrigeration" is sometimes added to the field's abbreviation, as HVAC&R or HVACR or "ventilation" is dropped, as in HACR.

Phonon Quasiparticle of mechanical vibrations

In physics, a phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, specifically in solids and some liquids. Often referred to as a quasiparticle, it is an excited state in the quantum mechanical quantization of the modes of vibrations for elastic structures of interacting particles. Phonons can be thought of as quantized sound waves, similar to photons as quantized light waves.

Active cooling is a heat-reducing mechanism that is typically implemented in electronic devices and indoor buildings to ensure proper heat transfer and circulation from within.

Energy harvesting is the process by which energy is derived from external sources, captured, and stored for small, wireless autonomous devices, like those used in wearable electronics and wireless sensor networks.

Thermal energy storage

Thermal energy storage (TES) is achieved with widely different technologies. Depending on the specific technology, it allows excess thermal energy to be stored and used hours, days, months later, at scales ranging from the individual process, building, multiuser-building, district, town, or region. Usage examples are the balancing of energy demand between daytime and nighttime, storing summer heat for winter heating, or winter cold for summer air conditioning. Storage media include water or ice-slush tanks, masses of native earth or bedrock accessed with heat exchangers by means of boreholes, deep aquifers contained between impermeable strata; shallow, lined pits filled with gravel and water and insulated at the top, as well as eutectic solutions and phase-change materials.

Molten-salt battery class of battery that uses molten salts as an electrolyte and offers both a high energy density and a high power density

Molten-salt batteries are a class of battery that uses molten salts as an electrolyte and offers both a high energy density and a high power density. Traditional non-rechargeable thermal batteries can be stored in their solid state at room temperature for long periods of time before being activated by heating. Rechargeable liquid-metal batteries are used for industrial power backup, special electric vehicles and for grid energy storage, to balance out intermittent renewable power sources such as solar panels and wind turbines.

Micropower describes the use of very small electric generators and prime movers or devices to convert heat or motion to electricity, for use close to the generator. The generator is typically integrated with microelectronic devices and produces "several watts of power or less." These devices offer the promise of a power source for portable electronic devices which is lighter weight and has a longer operating time than batteries.

Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

Sound amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SASER) refers to a device that emits acoustic radiation. It focuses sound waves in a way that they can serve as accurate and high-speed carriers of information in many kinds of applications—similar to uses of laser light.

Thermoelectric generator Device that converts heat flux into electrical energy

A thermoelectric generator (TEG), also called a Seebeck generator, is a solid state device that converts heat flux directly into electrical energy through a phenomenon called the Seebeck effect. Thermoelectric generators function like heat engines, but are less bulky and have no moving parts. However, TEGs are typically more expensive and less efficient.

Dieter Martin Gruen is a German-born American scientist, who was a senior member of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He received B.S. and M.S. (1947) degrees in chemistry from Northwestern University and the Ph.D. (1951) in chemical physics from the University of Chicago.

Concentrated solar power Use of mirror or lens assemblies to heat a working fluid for electricity generation

Concentrated solar power systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight onto a receiver. Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is converted to heat, which drives a heat engine connected to an electrical power generator or powers a thermochemical reaction.

Energy technology is an interdisciplinary engineering science having to do with the efficient, safe, environmentally friendly, and economical extraction, conversion, transportation, storage, and use of energy, targeted towards yielding high efficiency whilst skirting side effects on humans, nature, and the environment.

ARPA-E, or Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy is a United States government agency tasked with promoting and funding research and development of advanced energy technologies. It is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Transatomic Power was an American company that designed Generation IV nuclear reactors based on molten salt reactor (MSR) technology.

Gang Chen is a Chinese-born American mechanical engineer and nanotechnologist. At MIT, he is the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering and he was head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering from July 23, 2013 to June 30, 2018. He directed the Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center, an Energy Frontier Research Center formerly funded by the US Department of Energy. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Richard D. Robinson is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University.

Samuel Graham, Jr. is an American engineer and currently the Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. School Chair and Professor at Georgia Tech. Graham is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and serves on the Advisory Board of the Air Force Research Laboratory. On October 1, 2021, he will become dean of the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland.

A Carnot battery is a type of energy storage system that stores electricity in thermal energy storage. During the charging process, electricity is converted into heat and kept in heat storage. During the discharging process, the stored heat is converted back into electricity.

References

  1. 1 2 Angail, Nadirah (April 2016). "The Proud Conqueror: Asegun Henry, PhD". In Scott-Carrol, Joy M.; Sparks, Anthony (eds.). Running the Long Race in Gifted Education: Narratives and Interviews from Culturally Diverse Gifted Adults. Book Publishers Network. pp. 106–13. ISBN   9781945271007.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "People". Georgia Tech Atomistic Simulation & Energy Research Group. Georgia Institute of Technology. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 "Asegun Henry: Fellow, ARPA-E". ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit. 2012. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  4. ↑ Ouellette, Jennifer (February 22, 2016). "This Scientist Is Turning Every Element In the Periodic Table Into Music". Gizmodo. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  5. ↑ "Award#1554050 - CAREER: Engineering Heat Conduction Through Alloys and Interfaces". National Science Foundation. February 29, 2016. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  6. ↑ Rutherford, Adam (November 12, 2017). "BBC Inside Science: Antibiotics and Farming, Molten Metal Pump, Acoustic Biodiversity, Athenia". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  7. ↑ "Highest operating temperature liquid pump". Guinness World Records. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  8. ↑ O’Heir, Jeff (May 2018). "Pumping Extremely Hot Metal, Part 1". ASME. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  9. ↑ O’Heir, Jeff (May 2018). "Pumping Extremely Hot Metal, Part 2". ASME. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  10. ↑ Wills, Stewart (December 11, 2018). "Putting the "Sun in a Box" for Energy Storage". Optics & Photonics News. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  11. ↑ Czykanski, Marek (December 8, 2018). "Cost-Effective Storage for Renewable Energy". ChemistryViews. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  12. 1 2 Claburn, Thomas (December 8, 2018). "Boffins build blazing battery bonfire". The Register. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  13. ↑ Irving, Michael (December 6, 2018). "MIT's conceptual "sun-in-a-box" energy storage system plugs into molten silicon". New Atlas. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  14. ↑ Grossman, David (December 6, 2018). "Scientists Envision Replacing Batteries with a Molten Silicon 'Sun in a Box'". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
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