Bioinspired Composites Strategies for Saving Energy

Saving energy together with energy harvesting is demanded by increasing power consumption. The energy industry requires new materials not only for construction but also in cabling infrastructure. Moreover, the trend of portable and small devices causes a significant challenge in heat dissipation technologies.

The need for sustainable technology in thermal insulation and cooling solutions to decrease power consumption requires new innovation.

My ambition is to bring novel solutions inspired by nature to the thermal management challenges such as:-constructing light and more efficient thermal insulation; -developing cooling system based on the fibrous membranes to dissipate effectively heat, both leading to lower power consumption; -building mechanically robust and integrated system with conductive or piezoelectric properties, including thermal insulation and cooling system designed together for small devices and smart textiles.The aim of the project is therefore to both comprehensively evaluate natural design strategiesand develop structural equivalents using novel composite manufacturing routes.

Key to composite production is electrospinning allowing engineering the novel composites based on the porous membranes that will transform thermal energy management efficiency, allowing to increase the savings in daily life.The novelty of the project is the combined effort of complex composite membranes that have been never performed before.

The interdisciplinary team of postdocs and PhD students working in parallel on the divided but interlayered topics, will lead to break-through in engineered multifunctional thermal materials for various geometries from buildings to cables.