Join us for the third edition of the Lemanic Life Sciences Hackathon!
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\r\nOrganized by EPFL School of Life Sciences, EPFL AI Center and the University of Bern, we aim to bring together clinicians, life scientists, and data scientists to test ideas, drive innovation, and tackle real-world challenges in healthcare and research.
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\r\nExplore the untapped potential of AI in life sciences and clinical research\r\n
Boiling is one of the most efficient modes of heat transfer, underlying many energy-intensive processes. Advancements in surface engineering have enabled significant enhancement of boiling heat transfer. However, performance gains rarely transfer across conditions or geometries. Two challenges illustrate why: bubble nucleation behavior is poorly reproducible; and increasing nucleating density to raise the heat transfer coefficient typically lowers the system’s maximum achievable heat flux. This talk presents our efforts in addressing each challenge by identifying the governing mechanism and designing for it.
\r\nIn the first part, micro-engineered silicon surfaces isolate two governing length scales: the hydrodynamic boundary layer thickness, which controls nucleation stability through inter-site shielding, and the bubble departure diameter, which governs vapor removal after full activation. We experimentally show that nucleation stability responds to the former length scale (~0.24 mm); heat transfer in the activated regime responds to the latter length scale (~2.5 mm).
\r\nThe second study addresses the high-heat-flux limit, where large vapor structures block liquid return. Capillary wicking through copper inverse opals (~10 μm pores) supplies liquid beneath the vapor. Crucially, the pore cavities are themselves the nucleation sites, so wicking capacity and nucleation density derive from the same structure. Further, CuO nanograss on the pore walls suppresses vapor penetration into the porous layer, enabling thicker structures and greater capillary head. The result is simultaneous enhancement of heat transfer coefficients and maximum heat fluxes.
\r\nTogether, the two works show that mechanism-targeted surface design yields gains that empirical topography optimization does not. They point toward a broader design principle: that nucleation and interfacial transport, treated as controllable rather than given, offer a promising path to engineering phase change processes across applications.
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\r\nhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b20520?ref=pdf
\r\nhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10209-w
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\r\nBio: Zhengmao Lu is a Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at EPFL. Prior to joining EPFL, Zhengmao was a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT with Prof. Jeffrey Grossman. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, both advised by Prof. Evelyn Wang. At EPFL, Zhengmao leads the Energy Transport Advances Laboratory (η-Lab), aiming to deepen our understanding of phase change phenomena and develop more sustainable energy and water technologies by optimizing interfacial transport. Zhengmao is a recipient of the ERC Starting Grant, MicroFIPS Outstanding Early Career Award, Keck Travel Award in Thermal Sciences, and the Outstanding Graduate Research Award from MIT Mechanical Engineering.
In a global investment landscape increasingly driven by technology, automation, and scale, EHL has chosen to anchor its Summit in what has always defined its community: the power of human experience.
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\r\nThe Investor Track on Day 2 (May 20th) is designed as a curated gateway into Europe’s most promising human-centric innovation — ventures that use technology to elevate people, not replace them. These startups operate at the intersection of Hospitality and service industries, including food&beverages, travel and tourism, luxury and retail, education, nutrition and wellbeing and more.
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\r\nThe audience will be a diverse coalition of seed and Series A investors, including business angel networks, VCs, corporate VCs, family offices, and individual investors who believe that the future will be shaped by purpose-driven technology that enhances human potential.
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\r\nFull agenda available here
A summer school taking place this September will bring together EPFL and ETH Zurich PhD students to explore how uncertainty can become a productive resource in design and fabrication through a hands-on construction robotics challenge.
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\r\nThe program combines lectures in architecture, robotics, and work psychology with the full-scale construction of a timber structure from irregular timber stock, using an ABB industrial robot in a human-robot fabrication workflow.
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\r\nNo previous experience in construction robotics is required, only curiosity.
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\r\nMore details, including the program, dates, and registration information, are available on the website: https://cap-uncertainty.epfl.ch/
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\r\nFor questions, please contact: cap-uncertainty@epfl.ch
The conversion of low-carbon resources such as biomass and CO2 into synthetic liquid fuels, value-added chemicals, and biomaterials is a crucial approach for global carbon emission reduction. In this context, this talk will focus on recent research advances on biomass and CO2 conversion to sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), chemicals and bio-based materials. Considering the challenges associated with low-carbon resources, including dispersed distribution, significant fluctuations in raw material composition, and high conversion costs, a distributed-centralized system utilizing alcohols as key platform molecules has been proposed. Alcohol synthesis from biomass and CO2 will be presented with the focus on catalysis for methanol (thermocatalysis) and ethanol synthesis (electrocatalysis) from CO2. Conversion of alcohol to SAF will be introduced with discussions on the design of multifunctional catalysts for alcohol conversion, the dynamic evolution of catalytic sites, and the strategies for tuning product distributions. Additionally, a few examples of biobased materials, such as cellulose nanofiber-based biomaterials and bio-based nylon precursor and polyester precursor, will be presented.
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\r\nBio: Dr. Zhenglong Li is the “Qiushi” Chair Professor of Zhejiang University. He is the lead of the sustainable aviation fuels research of the State Key Laboratory of Bio-based Transportation Fuel Technology, director of the Biomass Value-Added Utilization Research Center, and the director of the Bio-based Chemicals Division in the Institute of Zhejiang University-Quzhou. His research is dedicated to the high-value utilization of biomass and carbon dioxide to synthesize sustainable aviation fuel, chemicals, and bio-based materials. He was the team lead in the biomass conversion area at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (United States) prior to joining Zhejiang University. He was the committee member for the Chemical Catalysis for Bioenergy Consortium under the United States Department of Energy (DOE). His group focus on in-depth understanding of the catalytic processes of biomass and carbon dioxide at the molecular level to guide catalyst design, process development, and industrial application, especially R&D of SAF, bio-based chemicals, key bio-based polymer building blocks. His research group has published many high-impact scientific papers in top journals such as J. Am. Chem. Soc., Nat. Commun., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., ACS Catal., Appl. Catal. B., and others. In terms of technology commercialization, he has developed new core technologies such as bio-based alcohols conversion for sustainable aviation fuel and bio-based biodegradable materials.
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The growing challenges of plastic pollution, fossil resource depletion, and carbon emissions have accelerated the search for sustainable alternatives to polymers. This presentation will focus on the development of fully bio-based polycarbonates, synthesized through the polymerization of carbon dioxide with renewable epoxides. We will first detail our laboratory’s work in generating a diverse portfolio monomer from a wide range of bio-feedstocks including plant oils, terpenes, lignocellulosic biomass, and industrial byproducts. Another focus is the effect of monomer structure on resulting polymer properties and performance, and how post-polymerization modification strategies can be employed to tailor materials for specific applications. (2) Applications of bio-based polycarbonates will be then discussed in fields such as coatings, biomedical materials, adhesives, and their recycling pathways. (3) An outline of future directions will be explored, emphasizing the roles of advanced catalyst design, AI-driven manufacturing, and supportive policy frameworks to enable scalable and sustainable production. The integration of CO2 utilization with renewable feedstocks presents a compelling route toward circular and carbon–neutral materials.
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\r\nBio: Shaoqing Cui, Ph.D., is a Principal Investigator under the Zhejiang University’s \"Hundred Talents Program\" and a recipient of China’s National High-level Talent Program - (Overseas Young Talent Project). She used to be an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (United States) before joining Zhejiang University. Her research focuses on the valorization of agricultural waste and carbon dioxide conversion and utilization, including high-value utilization of agricultural straw, waste oils as well as microalgae biomass. She has led and participated in multiple research projects, including a U.S. Department of Energy project on the efficient catalytic conversion of waste-treatment microalgae and CO2 into high-value plastic products, also two U.S. Department of Agriculture projects. Since joining the Zhejiang University in 2023, she has also been leading several major research initiatives, including projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Zhejiang Provincial Key R&D Programs.
Come to SPOT on the first Thursday of every month to repair your damaged and broken items instead of throwing them away! This Repair Cafe aims to combat overconsumption and waste production by extending the life of objects and showing how we can move towards a circular economy. We want to promote the reuse of everyday items of all kinds, from appliances to clothing, by providing easy access to repair experts while teaching people how to fix things themselves.
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