WELCOME!

​The TREE Lab at the University of Michigan aspires to address the defining dual challenges of the 21st century – providing access to affordable and secure energy resources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by advancing the understanding of transport and kinetic processes for solar fuel generators, thermal energy storage and water treatment devices. 
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Our group performs multidisciplinary research in the areas of thermal and fluid sciences, solar energy conversion, multiscale computation, and electrochemical engineering. ​We apply the approach of developing computational models integrated with experimental analyses to probe the  interplay of heat and mass transfer, fluid flow and chemical reactions that play a central role in various thermal, thermochemical, and electrochemical energy systems. 

RESEARCH TOPICS

Solar Fuels

Investigation of high-temperature thermochemical and low-temperature photoelectrochemical pathways for solar energy driven water and carbon dioxide splitting to produce hydrogen and syngas

Thermal Energy Storage

Fundamental understanding and evaluation of heat transfer performance of materials for thermal energy storage applications. We are specifically seeking to understand radiative transport for temperature thermal energy storage applications and also thermochemical energy storage by exploiting energy changes in chemical reactions 

Wastewater Resource Recovery 

Exploration of photoelectrochemical approaches for wastewater nutrient and energy recovery. Specifically investigating the viability of solar-driven tertiary pathways for nitrogen-recovery from wastewater sources

Image: https://phys.org/news/2016-01-industry-additive.html

Metals Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing of metals and metal alloys can profoundly alter the production and time-to-market of various components and products. We are especially interested in the evaluation of the multimode heat-transfer processes involved in this process and how additively manufactured metals and metal alloys behave in supercritical carbon dioxide environments at high-temperatures (1100 C).