This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101046835.

A future thermal management solution funded by the European Union and European Innovation Council

Background

Thermal management is in the strong need for new material’s innovation. Stunningly, large data centres spend up to 40% of the total energy consumption to run the cooling system. Other examples are in the cooling of electronics and in the thermal control of electric vehicles batteries.

Problem

Here, the development of innovative solutions is hindered by heat removal and transport unsolved problems; the design aspect of thermal control devices has achieved so much but is already under pressure.

Aim

In ThermoDust we will achieve a real breakthrough in investigating new flexible materials, with the final aim of engineering a radically new material (ThermoDust) with outstanding heat transfer performance and suitable for Additive Manufacturing.

Impact

We are confident to be able to achieve the overall objectives through a sophisticated multi-disciplinary methodology that will rely upon scientific investigations, and the exploitation of discoveries to establish Europe as a leader in heat management, paving the way for innumerable new innovative products and markets in ICT, aerospace, electric vehicles and related areas.

Dr. Rocco Lupoi

LUPOIR@tcd.ie

I graduated as mechanical engineer in 2004 from Polytechnic University of Turin, and obtained my PhD degree with great success from the University of Bath (UK) in 2008. My PhD project was covered by an article with dedicated front cover in EUREKA magazine (May 2005) with title Devices that absorb energy on demand. I really enjoyed research, and formed a clear passion for the development of new manufacturing processes. As such, I was hired as post-doctoral researcher in Cambridge University (UK) in 2008 to carry out ground-breaking work in a new field, now known as Additive Manufacturing. In Cambridge I published key papers, submitted a patent (now granted), and formed a spin-off company with co-workers (Laser Fusion Tech.) to commercialize the processes I had developed. Despite the commercial attraction, academic research remained my true passion; in summer 2012 I accepted the post of Assistant Professor in Trinity College Dublin and I started to develop my own group. In 2013 I became Marie Curie Fellow (CIG scheme), and in 2014 I was awarded of a key grant from the European Space Agency (Technology Research Programme - TRP). I was the very first PI in Trinity to have secured an award of this size from ESA. The project was featured in the national innovation news page of the Irish Times, 19th of January 2015. As an independent PI, I am now a funded investigator in AMBER (the national research centre for advanced materials and bioengineering) and I-Form (the national centre for Advanced Manufacturing). I am now an Associate Member of the international academy of production engineering (CIRP). In summary, I am an emerging leader in Additive Manufacturing with established collaborations in Europe (Ireland, UK, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, France) and the rest of the World (China, US, Canada). In recognition to my research career, I was elected Fellow of Trinity College Dublin (FTCD) in 2019 and nominated Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (FIMMM) in 2022.

Prof. Valeria Nicolosi

NICOLOV@TCD.IE

Prof. Valeria Nicolosi is internationally regarded as a leading expert in the field of processing of low-dimensional nanostructures and high-end electron microscopy. She received a BSc with honours in Chemistry from the University of Catania (Italy) in 2001 and a Ph.D. in Physics in 2006 from the University of Dublin, Trinity College (TCD). Today Prof. Nicolosi is a PI in the newly founded Science Foundation Ireland Advanced Materials and BioEngineering Research Centre (AMBER) and is providing leadership in CRANN’s Advanced Microscopy Laboratory. Prof. Nicolosi has published more than 250 papers in high-profile international journals and delivered more than 100 invited, keynote and plenary presentations at major conferences、institutions、public understanding of science events.

Dr. Shuo Yin

yins@tcd.ie

Dr. Shuo Yin is a leading young researcher in the field of additive manufacturing and 3D printing technology (cold spraying, selective laser melting, digital light processing, direct ink writing). He was appointed Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator in early 2019. Shuo has extensive knowledge and experience in equipment design and manufacturing, microstructure characterization and analysis, process in-situ visualization, numerical modelling, mechanical and biomedical properties, which is crucial to the successful implementation of the proposed project. Dr. Yin has secured several key research fundings from a number of funding bodies as PI or Co-PI, including the European Innovation Council (EIC), Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), Irish Research Council (IRC), Enterprise Ireland (EI), Intertrade Ireland. He is the awardee of IRC Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. He succeeded the first-stage evaluation of 2019 ERC Starting Grant. Shuo’ group produces top-quality research; he and his group members have published over 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is now serving as associate editor and editorial board member in several journals. He is the member of ASM Thermal Spray Society and member of European Cold Spray Club. He has been recognised as top 2% scientist by Stanford University in three consecutive years.

Dr. Sergi Dosta

sdosta@ub.edu

Dr. Dosta is the leader of surfaces, developments and processes research group from Universitat de Barcelona. He is professor and head of Materials Science and Engineering section department of Universitat de Barcelona. He also has huge experience in thermal spray and surface engineering, leading several international projects in the field. In addition, he is the President of the European Thermal Spray Association since 2022. He has 31 h-index accounting more than 100 peer-review publications.

Dr. Camila Barreneche

c.bareneche@ub.edu

Dr. Barreneche is professor at Materials Science and Physical Chemistry department of Universitat de Barcelona (Spain). She has huge experience in the development and characterization of materials, specially in techniques related with the calorimetry and thermal conductivity. Actually she has 41 h-index and account more than 120 high impact peer-reviewed publications. She has participated in several national and international competitive projects.

Dr. Wessel W. Wits

W.W.Wits@UTwente.nl

Dr. ir. Wessel W. Wits is Hardware Architect at Thales Netherlands and appointed Fellow at the University of Twente. Dr. Wits received his PhD in 2008 on the topic of integrated cooling concepts for electronic systems. Since then he has a profound interest in thermal management of electronic systems. Next to a solid base in heat and mass flow knowledge, expertise in engineering design and manufacturing plays a pivotal role in this respect. Recent advances in advanced manufacturing (e.g. 3D Printing) have tremendously enlarged the manufacturable design solution space. Dr. Wits is committed to exploiting this technological progress by inventing even better cooling devices, and by disseminating this to academia and industry at large.
Dr. Wits is Associate Member of the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), Steering Committee Member of THERMINIC, the International Workshop on Thermal Investigations of ICs and Systems. For this ThermoDust project, Dr. Wits is Chair of the board.

Dr. Davoud Jafari, dr. ir.

davoud.jafari@utwente.nl

Dr. Davoud Jafari has been recently appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Design Production and Management (DPM) at the University of Twente (UT). Davoud obtained his PhD in Thermal Engineering at the University of Pisa (Italy) in 2016. Later, Davoud joined DPM at UT in early 2017. His research's ultimate goal is to develop and engineer new materials, enabling energy solutions in the real world. To do this, he applies physics of fabrication and thermal engineering to synthesis, characterize, and incorporate innovative materials into next-generation energy conversion and storage systems. Davoud currently works on advancing additive manufacturing techniques to fabricate multiscale porous materials for electrochemical technologies including fuel cells for terrestrial and space applications. Davoud’s interdisciplinary background on Thermal/Mechanical engineering and experimental characterization techniques makes him positioned to tackle the fundamental challenges of ThermoDust Project.

Dr. Sara Bagherifard

sara.bagherifard@polimi.it

Dr. Sara Bagherifard is Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Polytechnic University of Milan. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Systems Engineering from Polytechnic University of Milan in 2011. Following her PhD, she held multiple research associate, postdoctoral fellow and visiting positions at University of Cambridge (UK), Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (US) and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
She has been awarded with various grants, awards and scholarships including ERC-Consolidator grant (2021), ASTM International Additive Manufacturing Young Professional Award (2021), Best Talk Award from European Conference on Structural Integrity of Additively Manufactured Materials (2019), Young Scientist Lecture Gold Prize from the 10th International Conference on Surfaces, Coatings and Nanostructured Materials (2015), and International Schlumberger Fellowship Faculty for The Future (2011 and 2012).
Her major research interests are developing mechanical surface treatments and studying their applications in improving the structural integrity of metallic materials, additive manufacturing, and modulating the interaction of materials with their immediate environment.

Prof. Mario Guagliano

mario.guagliano@polimi.it

Mario Guagliano is professor in Department of Mechanical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. His scientific interests are kinetic treatments for surface strengthening and functionalization.
In this field he has been coordinating European and National research projects as well as contractual research projects with private and public companies. He has been chairman and plenary lecturer in several international conferences and is in the editorial board of high-rank journals.
He has served as the president of the International Scientific Committee on Shot Peening, and has been the author and co-author of more than 100 papers, with h-index 44. He has been also awarded Dr, h.c. by the University of Zilina (SK).

Dr. Janez Zaavšnik

janez.zavasnik@ijs.si

Dr. Janez Zavašnik (twitter handle: https://twitter.com/zavasnikJanez) is a senior researcher and a group leader at the Gaseous Electronics department, Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI), Ljubljana, Slovenia (web: https://ijs.si/ijsw) and assistant professor at the Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School (web: https://www.mps.si/en/).
Dr. Zavašnik is a member of European Microbeam Analysis Society, Slovene Society for Microscopy, Nuclear Society of Slovenia and an executive board member of the Slovenian Society for Vacuum Technique (DVTS). He obtained PhD in 2013 on the topic of Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies, and he is an expert on the analytical scanning and transmission electron microscopy. In the scope of the ThermoDust project, he will be in charge of the novel plasma-assisted synthesis of the carbon-based-metal-composites.

Prof. Uros Cvelbar

uros.cvelbar@ijs.si

Dr. Cvelbar is a senior researcher, university professor and head of the Department of Gaseous Electronics (F6) at the Jozef Stefan Institute. He is a member of several executive boards of scientific societies, editor, and a fellow of World Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr Cvelbar’s bibliography contains over 250 international scientific papers, 100 invited talks, and 20 patents. His research interests cover plasma and material science, including nanotechnology. 

Dr. Apostolos Koutsioukis

KOUTSIOA@tcd.ie

Dr. Apostolos Koutsioukis is a Research Fellow in the group of Prof. Valeria Nicolosi based in the CRANN institute and School of Chemistry, at Trinity College Dublin. His research interest focuses on the development of 2D nanomaterials for (2D/3D) printing of thermoelectrical devices. He has (co) authored 12 peer reviewed papers in international journals, one book chapter, and has participated to more than 15 conferences. He received his master’s in 2018 and PhD in 2022 from Department of Material Science, University of Patras, Greece.

Dr. Amir Ardeshiri Lordejani

amir.ardeshiri@polimi.it

Dr. Amir Ardeshiri Lordejani is a postdoc researcher at the department of mechanical engineering at Politecnico di Milano, and a part of the team of Prof. Guagliano and Prof. Bagherifard. His main research interest is experimental and numerical investigation of various applications of Cold Spray gas deposition, with a focus on Cold Spray for Additive manufacturing. He has (co) authored 6 peer-reviewed papers in international scientific journals and has participated as the oral presenter inmore than 11 conferences.
Amir earned his PhD degree with honors, in Mechanical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in March 2023 for his doctoral dissertation, titled "Application of Cold Spray as an Additive Manufacturing and Repair Method,".

Hyunjong Lee

H.Lee@Utwente.nl

Mr. Lee is a PhD candidate in the University of Twente. Prior to starting his PhD, he received his master’s degree regarding the topic of understanding nano-scale phenomena using transmission electron microscopy, especially for the two-dimensional nanomaterials such as graphene. He has continued his research career in the industrial scale applications of materials system, by combining his idea on nano-scale phenomena and materials processing technologies of sintering. His interests mostly lie on the building new materials system with excellent materials properties (e.g., thermal conductivity) as overcoming the limitation of materials processing techniques via new approach on materials designing (e.g., additive manufacturing). In order to reach excellent materials properties, his research goal is enabling industrial-scale applications of nanomaterials by understanding the effect of nano-scale phenomena into macro-scale properties of materials. Basically, his role in this project will be characterizing the materials properties (e.g., thermal and mechanical properties).

Fatemeh Zarei

fatemeh.zarei@polimi.it

Fatemeh Zarei, currently pursuing a PhD at Politecnico di Milano, holds a master's degree in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology from the same institution. Her academic journey has been marked by the characterization of different properties (mechanical and physical) of 2D materials for thermal management applications during her undergraduate studies and significant contributions to a European Space Agency project (IAMSpace) focused on the mechanical assessment of Additive Manufacturing components during her master's program.
Within the scope of the Thermodust project, she assumes a role in the additive manufacturing of various 2DMMCs, aligning seamlessly with her substantive expertise in composite materials and innovative production methodologies. She is deeply passionate about exploring functional materials and advanced production methods like additive manufacturing. 

Siyuan Ruan

ruans@tcd.ie

Miss Siyuan Ruan graduated from Imperial College London with a Distinction MSc degree in Advanced Materials Science and Engineering. She achieved two bachelor’s degrees from a joint undergraduate programme at Harbin Engineering University and Swansea University in July of 2020. She used to work as an intern assistant for the project collaborated by Swansea University and Henry Royce Institute during the summer placement. After graduated from Imperial College London, she joined the ThermoDust project and started her PhD at Trinity College Dublin in Dr. Yin's group. Her major interests include investigating advanced types of 2D nanocomposite materials by using varies characterization methods to improve both thermal and mechanical properties of the product, to make it suitable for industrial mass-scale production of additive manufacturing.

Dr. Rocco Lupoi

Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical, Manufacturing & Biomedical Engineering

lupoir@tcd.ie