Climate change, degrading water resources, and economic and population growth are increasing the need for new science and technologies at the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. In enabling new and improved technologies to tackle these issues, new nanomaterials designed with systems-level thermodynamics is essential to improve efficiency, allow for new power sources, and enable applications to agriculture. Following this approach, thermodynamic design of water treatment membrane technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO) and membrane distillation (MD) leads to innovations with superhydrophobic nanostructured surfaces for enhanced heat transfer, time-varying “batch” cycles, new system configurations, and optimal use of waste heat can more than double system efficiencies. Furthermore, optimization of heat and mass transfer and chemical thermodynamics in these technologies allows for nanofabricated membranes with superior flux and fouling resistance, including graphene oxide multilayer membranes. These approaches not only yield significant improvements in water treatment and associated energy use, but also in providing water and energy needs for food applications, such as pumping energy for agricultural ground water, or using phase-change thermal storage to enable refrigeration of food despite intermittent power in the developing world.

Dr. David Warsinger completed his B.S. and M.Eng at Cornell, and his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at MIT: he completed his graduate studies in a combined 3 years. David’s research focuses on the water-energy nexus, with approaches from thermofluids and nanoengineering. Currently, David is a Postdoc at MIT and beginning a joint Postdoc at Harvard. Prior to starting his PhD, David worked at the engineering consulting firm Arup, where he performed energy and sustainability analysis and designed heating and cooling systems. David is a coauthor of 22 published and 6 submitted journal and conference papers, and a co-inventor of 13 filed or awarded patents. He is also involved with entrepreneurial endeavors, including demonstrating batch reverse osmosis with MIT startup Sandymount, and cofounding Coolify, a startup providing refrigeration via phase-change thermal storage for farmers in developing economies. Notable awards David has earned include the national dissertation award from UCOWR, the highest GPA award for his Masters, 9 presenter awards, and the MIT institute award for best research mentor for undergraduate students.

Birck Nanotechnology Center

1. World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland, "Global risks 2015 10th edition," 2015.
2. "Global desalination market set to grow 320.3% by 2020 - driven by RO," Membrane Technology, vol. 2011, no. 10, pp. 7, 2011.
3. U. E. I. Administration, International Energy Outlook 2016. U.S. Department of Energy, 2015.
4. The Water and Food Nexus: Trends and Development of the Research Landscape, Stockholm International Water Institute and Elsevier, 2012
5. D. M. Warsinger, K. H. Mistry, K. G. Nayar, H. W. Chung, and J. H. Lienhard V, "Entropy generation of desalination powered by variable temperature waste heat," Entropy, vol. 17, pp. 7530?7566, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3390/e17117530
6. D. M. Warsinger, J. Swaminathan, and J. H. Lienhard V, "Effect of module inclination angle on air gap membrane distillation," in Proceedings of the 15th International Heat Transfer Conference, IHTC-15, Paper No. IHTC15-9351, Kyoto, Japan August 2014. https://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess-disseminate/1721.1/100241
7. D. M. Warsinger1, E. W. Tow1, K. Nayar, and J. H. Lienhard V, "Energy efficiency of batch and semi-batch (CCRO) reverse osmosis desalination," Water Research, vol. 106, pp. 272-282, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2016.09.029
8. D. M. Warsinger, E. W. Tow, R. McGovern, G. Thiel, and J. H. Lienhard V. Batch Pressure-Driven Membrane Separation with Closed-Flow Loop and Reservoir. Full Patent US ,US10166510B, 2 previously No. 15/350,064 November 2016 https://www.google.com/patents/US20170239620
9. D. M. Warsinger, E. W. Tow, and John H. Lienhard V. Batch Pressure-Driven Membrane Desalination Using Pressure Exchanger for Efficiency. Full Patent Application US 15009 10166510, January 2016 https://www.google.com/patents/WO2017132301A1
10. D. M. Warsinger, J. Swaminathan, L. Maswadeh, and J. H. Lienhard V, "Superhydrophobic condenser surfaces for air gap membrane distillation," Journal of Membrane Science, vol. 492, pp. 578?587, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2015.05.067
11. D. M. Warsinger, J. Swaminathan, and J. H. Lienhard V, "Hydrophobic air-gap membrane distillation," Full Patent (Granted), US 9,751,047, September 2014. https://www.google.com/patents/US20160107121
12. Miljkovic, N., Enright, R., Nam, Y., Lopez, K., Dou, N., Sack, J. and Wang, E.N., 2013. Jumping-droplet-enhanced condensation on scalable superhydrophobic nanostructured surfaces. Nano letters, 13(1), pp.179-187. https://doi.org/10.1021/nl303835d
13. D. M. Warsinger, J. H Lienhard, A.T Servi, J. Swaminathan, ?Maintenance of Gas Layers for Fouling Prevention on Submerged Surfaces,? Full Patent (Granted), US 10441921, October 2019. https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2016187263A1/
14. D. M. Warsinger, J. Swaminathan, E. Guillen-Burrieza, H. A. Arafat, and J. H. Lienhard V, "Scaling and fouling in membrane distillation for desalination applications: A review," Desalination, vol. 356, pp. 294?313, 2015. (>300 citations) (my first journal publication) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2014.06.031
15. Coclite, A.M., Howden, R.M., Borrelli, D.C., Petruczok, C.D., Yang, R., Yagüe, J.L., Ugur, A., Chen, N., Lee, S., Jo, W.J. and Liu, A., 2013. 25th anniversary article: CVD polymers: A new paradigm for surface modifi cation and device fabrication. Advanced Materials, 25(38), pp.5392-5423. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201301878
16. D. M. Warsinger, A. Servi, S.Van Belleghem, J. Gonzalez, J. Swaminathan, J. Kharraz, H. W. Chung, H. A. Arafat, K. K. Gleason, J. Lienhard V, "Combining air recharging and membrane superhydrophobicity for fouling prevention in membrane distillation," Journal of Membrane Science, vol. 505, pp. 241-252, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.memsci.2017.02.013
17. D. M. Warsinger, J. V. Gonzalez, S. M. Van Belleghem, A. Servi, J. Swaminathan, and J. H. Lienhard V, "The combined effect of air layers and membrane superhydrophobicity on biofouling in membrane distillation," in *Proceedings of The American Water Works Association Annual Conference and Exposition, Anaheim, California, USA*, 2015. https://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess-disseminate/1721.1/112263
18. D. M. Warsinger, A. Servi, G. Connors, J. Gonzalez, J. Swaminathan, H. W. Chung, H. A. Arafat, K. K. Gleason, J. Lienhard V, "A novel air-cleaning method for membrane distillation," in Oral Presentation, Proceedings of the AMTA Membrane Technology Conference & Exposition (MTC16), February 1-5, 2016, San Antonio, Texas, February 2016.
19. D. M. Warsinger, A. Servi, G. Connors, J. Gonzalez, J. Swaminathan, H. W. Chung, H. A. Arafat, K. K. Gleason, J. Lienhard V, "A novel air-cleaning method for membrane distillation," Proceedings of the AMTA Membrane Technology Conference & Exposition (MTC16), February 1-5, 2016, San Antonio, Texas, February 2016.
20. Aquanext Inc. "Spiral Reverse Osmosis Membrane," accessed Jan 2017, URL: http://www.aquanext-inc.com/en/product/desalination02.html
21. Amadei, C.A., Arribas, P. and Vecitis, C.D., 2018. Graphene oxide standardization and classification: Methods to support the leap from lab to industry. Carbon, 133, pp.398-409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2018.02.091
22. Amadei, C.A. and Vecitis, C.D., 2016. How to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of graphene oxide membrane research. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2016, 7, 19, 3791?3797, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.6b01829

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• David M. Warsinger (2017), "Can We Save Lives with Thermodynamics? Nanoengineering and Thermofluids for the Water-Food-Energy Nexus," https://nanohub.org/resources/26190.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. energy
2. heat transfer
3. materials science
4. membranes
5. nanomaterials
6. sustainability
7. thermodynamics
8. Water