James H. Zhang

James H. Zhang is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering whose research aims to develop interfacial solar evaporators as an alternative, cost-effective method of producing clean water. His previous MathWorks Fellowship enabled James to design experimental systems and transport modeling to better understand the performance of solar evaporators for desalination applications. With a second MathWorks Fellowship, James will extend this work, exploring the mechanisms underlying relevant phenomena, such as the coupling between heat and mass transport from evaporating porous interfaces. Beyond the evaporating performance in open laboratory conditions, he has also developed a comprehensive model to understand solar still device performance and identified the limiting transport resistances in the system. By combining a colleague’s MATLAB- based ray-tracing code and experiments on the light coupling effects with the air-liquid interface, James will study their effects on the water production rates of solar desalination devices. His research has strong potential to improve our mechanistic understanding of the thermodynamics of these effects and speed the development of solar technology to meet global needs for clean drinking water.