Qianying Wu
Growing up in a hot and humid climate in south China, Qianying developed her particular interest in thermal management. In the Nanoheat lab and advised by Prof. Ken Goodson, she is currently working on the design and fabrication of microporous wicking structures for capillary-driven two-phase heat and mass transfer, the simulation and integration of such engineered structures in novel high heat flux cooling devices, and exploring ways to utilize these technologies for positive energy and sustainability impact.
Qianying received her B.S in Engineering with top honors from Tsinghua University, where she was awarded the Xia An Shi Prize and National Scholarship, and her B. Econ from the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua, where she was supported by a Fu Lai Chun Scholarship.
TomKat Graduate Fellow for Translational Research
Research Lab: Ken Goodson
Year Awarded: 2021
Qianying Wu's Profile | Stanford Profiles
Development of Synergistic Evaporative Cooling and Water Harvesting/Recycling Technologies for Energy Efficient and Sustainable Operation of Data Centers
Innovative and transformative technologies for energy conservation and efficient operation of the data centers are needed to moderate the accelerating electricity demand, currently exceeding 75 billion kWh/year in the US. Moreover, sustainable and water-saving operation of data centers is needed which is independent of the climate, water availability and location.
We propose optimized and synergistic (1) high heat flux evaporative cooling based on capillary-driven flow in microporous structures, and (2) water harvesting/recycling technology for increased energy-efficient and sustainable cooling of data centers. This technology could continuously harvest and recycle water using a metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) fluidized bed, eliminating the need for energy and water-hungry vapor-compression refrigeration cycle that uses on-site wet cooling towers.
The immediate impact of this project is improvement of the cooling capacity and energy efficiency of data centers. Our design will harvest and recycle water using the MOF-based fluidized bed that uses the low-grade waste energy/heat from the microprocessors. By eliminating the need for an energy-consuming vapor-compression refrigeration cycle, this technology could save 0.18 Gallons/kWh of water for cooling of the data centers. If the same technology is applied for an on-site electricity generation, an additional 0.8 Gallons/kWh could be saved. The impact of the proposed research could also be extended to enhance the energy efficiency of power electronics, fresh drinking water, and cooling systems from buildings.
Publications:
Two-phase thermofluidic modeling and validation of a multi-zone microchannel evaporator 2022 IEEE Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm). [Best Paper Award]