Dr Michael Gibbons
Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin
Engineering
What if the heat generated by our digital world could be used to warm our homes? Michael Gibbons asks just this through his research into waste heat, exploring how energy that is usually lost could instead become a valuable and sustainable resource. Sustainability sits at the core of his work, alongside a fascination with the microscopic processes that shape the world around us.
From coffee-ring stains to water beading on a windscreen, Michael sees more than everyday phenomena. He sees clues to the fundamental interactions between liquids, gases and solids that underpin technologies ranging from smartphones to data centres. A thread running through his research is the "contact line", the tiny region where liquids, gases and solids meet. By understanding what happens at these overlooked interfaces, he hopes to develop technologies that can transfer heat more efficiently and make better use of the energy we already produce.
Much of that work happens inside materials you could hold in your hand: metal "sponges", 3D-printed with features finer than a human hair, designed to draw liquid through themselves the way a paper towel soaks up a spill. When that liquid boils inside the sponge, it carries heat away far more effectively than solid metal alone.
Michael doesn't see data centres as simply good or bad, but as a growing part of the modern world. Rather than viewing technology in black-and-white terms, he is interested in the trade-offs that come with modern life and how science and engineering can help reduce their environmental cost.
With ambitions to improve how heat can be transported over longer distances, Michael hopes to find new ways of putting wasted energy to work. He is drawn to questions that sit between disciplines and scales, connecting tiny interactions at the edge of a droplet to some of the biggest sustainability challenges facing society today.