Prof. Rongfu Wen

State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals,

School of Chemical Engineering,

Dalian University of Technology, China

Dr. Rongfu Wen is a full Professor in School of Chemical Engineering at Dalian University of Technology (DUT). He received his Ph.D. from DUT in Chemical Engineering in 2015 and then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in NEXT Lab of Prof. Ronggui Yang at University of Colorado at Boulder during 2015-2019. Dr. Wen received several awards, including the Distinguished Overseas Young Scholars, ASME Best Poster Award, CSET Youth Excellent Paper, High-Level Talents in Dalian, etc. He serves as the youth editorial board member or Guest editor of several journals including Green Energy Resources, MDPI Coatings, and Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A. He also serves as the committee member of Advanced Structural Materials and the youth committee member of the Heat and Mass Transfer Branch of CSET.

His research interests include both fundamental and applied research in thermal-fluid sciences, interfacial transport, and nanotechnology with current research focus on dropwise condensation, nucleate boiling, thin film condensation/boiling, anti-frosting/icing, functional structures and coatings, and thermal management of electronics. He has published more than 60 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Joule (2), Natl. Sci. Rev., Cell Rep. Phys. Sci. (2), Nano Lett., Nano Energy (3), ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces (2), Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, Appl. Therm. Eng., Appl. Phys. Lett., etc. He held 6 US/Chinese patents and authored 2 books. Dr. Wen’s works have been widely cited by global researchers over 2000 times with an H-factor of 21 (google scholar), with 4 as ESI highly cited paper, and broadly covered by Science, Nature, Joule, Phys.Org, DeepTech, EurekAlert!, LongRoom, Presscute, CoolingZONE, ScienceNet, among others. 

Title: Micro/Nanoscale Interface Management for Enhancing Liquid-Vapor Phase Change Heat Transfer

Abstract：Liquid-vapor phase change processes, e.g., condensation, evaporation, and boiling, are essential in both conventional and emerging industrial systems. Great advances in material design and nanoengineering have been made in the interfacial management of wetting behaviors, fluid dynamics, and heat transfer performance. The versatility of surface features in micro/nanoscales on advanced functional surfaces can lead to high capillary wicking for rapid liquid spreading, low surface adhesion for fast droplets/bubbles movement, excellent surface repellency for self-propelled droplets/bubbles removal, and asymmetric surface morphology for directional fluid transport. In this Talk, we present an overview of the underlying mechanisms and advantages of new interfacial interactions and phenomena to illustrate how functional micro/nanostructured surfaces can improve droplet/bubble dynamics and thermal performance. Heat transfer enhancement strategies requiring advanced fluid manipulation solutions are discussed for both condensation and boiling processes, especially for the emerging interfacial management of coupling droplets/bubbles with a liquid film for sucking flow condensation and liquid film boiling. Major challenges and discoveries in the development of phase change heat transfer are also summarized to point out the future directions of high-efficiency two-phase thermal transport. Finally, a roadmap for the exploitation of enhanced surfaces in emerging phase change heat transfer applications and various energy systems is outlined.