The Hottest in Heat Storage—Asegun Henry, PhD—The Atomistic Simulation & Energy Research Group at MIT
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Atomistic Simulation & Energy Group at MIT, Asegun Henry, discusses his research and how it may hold the key to moving the needle on climate change.
In this episode, you will learn:
- How heat is transferred between atoms, what factors heat transfer mechanisms are dependent upon, and what happens at extremely hot temperatures
- How electricity can be stored as heat in the "sun in a box" technology being developed by Henry and his group
- What benefits are conferred by liquid metals for transferring heat
When you heat a pot of water, what's actually happening? What's behind those boiling bubbles…what processes and principles lead to your observations? It may sound like a rather simple question, but there's probably more to it than you think.
In fact, this was one of the questions that led Professor Asegun Henry into the field of research involving heat transfer, high temperatures, and energy. For Henry, it took awhile for him to get a straight answer to these questions, but today's show begins with exactly that.
Also discussed are the two projects Henry and his group are currently working on, which include an energy storage technology that involves storing heat rather than electricity in order to achieve extremely low costs, and a CO2-free technological approach to hydrogen production.
He provides an in-depth explanation of the physics and chemistry involved, and the solar energy and other commercial applications of this research.
Learn more by visiting https://ase.mit.edu/.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions. |
| 0:02.0 | Common sense, common knowledge, or Google. |
| 0:05.0 | How about advice from a real genius? |
| 0:07.0 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed. |
| 0:11.0 | 5% go above and beyond. They become very good at what they do, but only 0.1% are real Jesus. |
| 0:18.0 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, |
| 0:25.0 | sleep science, cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. |
| 0:30.3 | This is the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | That is Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:40.0 | I guess it's from MIT. |
| 0:42.0 | He's an associate professor. His name is Ashigoon Henry. So Professor Henry or |
| 0:47.7 | you should call you actually good. Thanks for coming. Thank you for having me. |
| 0:50.8 | Yeah, we're going to talk about your research. |
| 0:53.0 | So if you would, can you just state it your own terms? |
| 0:55.7 | What's your research about? |
| 0:58.0 | So my research really centers on heat transfer and energy. My research group and the topics that we work on are a bit |
| 1:07.3 | self-segregated into two separate areas. On the one side, we do like fundamental science work, work on the fundamental physics of heat transfer. We study heat transfer at the atomic level by looking at how atoms move, how atoms vibrate, and we develop, you know, theoretical models, approaches, framework for understanding heat transfer and the physics of heat transfer in that context. |
| 1:35.4 | The other half of my work is more large scale relevant for, you know, essentially we're |
| 1:41.3 | interested in any technology that can move the needle on climate |
| 1:44.1 | change but our expertise is specifically in heat transfer and we have a tendency to really work |
| 1:49.6 | specifically on technologies that involve heat transfer at high temperatures. |
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