Broadening Participation through a Workshop on Nanoengineered Surfaces for Thermal Energy Transport

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Phase change heat transfer is desirable in many industrial processes including water desalination, solar thermal energy storage, electrochemical energy storage, and electronics cooling. Over the last several decades, nanoscience has played a crucial role in the development of novel engineered surfaces for improving the thermodynamic efficiency of phase change heat transfer processes. While nanoengineered surfaces has become a critical technology for energy storage, nanoscience education is new and relatively underdeveloped. It is therefore important to develop novel and effective methods for teaching the concepts of nanoscience to students to continue the advancement of nanotechnology. The project seeks to address these issues with exploring the concepts of wettability characteristics of engineered surfaces and effects on multiphase systems. Through a workshop format, K-12 students will learn about the concepts of nanoengineered surfaces and multi-phase heat transfer. During the workshop, students will also participate in seminars and laboratory tours and conduct laboratory experiments. The goal is to inspire the students to pursue education and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields as well as convey the importance of surface engineering in solving future problems. An anticipated outcome of the project is to increase the awareness of novel evaporative cooling technology in development of chips and corresponding cooling challenges as one proceeds to make systems such as servers or power electronics devices. The project team will work with local outreach programs from Washington University including the Academic Pipeline programs to recruit students with few financial resources to participate in the workshop. The focus of this workshop is to address broadening participation in STEM fields by exposing underrepresented minorities and women to the interdisciplinary field of nanotechnology. An additional outcome of the workshop is the creation of a classroom module for teachers to use to experimentally demonstrate the importance of nanoengineered surfaces on thermal transport. Further, the project will collaborate with the Institute for School Partnership (ISP), is Washington University's signature effort to improve teaching and learning strategically within the K-12 education community, to develop and deliver the classroom module.