Thermal Energy: Applications, Innovations, and Future Directions

Amritanshu Shukla, Ph.D., is currently working as a Professor in Physics at Lucknow University, Lucknow, India. He has also served as Head of the Division of Basic Sciences and Humanities and as Chief Vigilance Officer of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, Jais, Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, India. His research interests include theoretical physics, nuclear physics, and physics of renewable energy resources, including thermal energy storage materials. He has published more than 100 research papers in various international journals and international and national conference proceedings. He has also written five international books, including Energy Security & Sustainability: Present and Future (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis), Sustainability through Energy-Efficient Buildings (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis), and Low Carbon Energy Supply – Trends, Technology, Management (Springer Nature). He has delivered invited talks at various national and international institutes and is involved with several national as well as international projects and active research collaborations in India and abroad (such as with the University of Lund, Sweden; Kunshan University, Taiwan; Université Clermont Auvergne, France; Virginia Tech University, USA) on the topics of his research interests. Formerly he has worked at some international research institutes, namely the Institute of Physics Bhubaneswar (Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India); Physical Research Laboratory Ahmedabad (Department of Space, Government of India); University of Rome/Gran Sasso National Laboratory, Italy; and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA. He was awarded the prestigious young scientist award in 2004 for attending a meeting with Nobel Laureates held at Lindau, Germany.

Atul Sharma is currently a Professor in Physics at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (set up through an Act of Parliament by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas as an Institute of National Importance on the lines of Indian Institutes of Technology). He has worked as a Scientific Officer at Devi Ahilya University, India; as a Research Assistant at the Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejon, South Korea; and as a Visiting Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kun Shan University, Tainan, Taiwan, Republic of China. Dr. Sharma completed his MPhil and Ph.D. from the School of Energy and Environmental Studies, Devi Ahilya University, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. Dr. Sharma has published several edited books from various well-known international publishers and research papers in various international journals and conferences. He completed several projects as principal investigator with funding from agencies, including the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, and the Council of Science and Technology, Uttar Pradesh, India. He is working on the development and applications of phase change materials, green buildings, solar water heating systems, solar air heating systems, and solar drying systems. Further, he served as a reviewer for many national and international journals, project reports, and book chapters.

Karunesh Kant is currently working as a Research Associate at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. He received his bachelor’s and master’s in mechanical engineering and Ph.D. in energy, specializing in thermal energy storage. He was awarded the prestigious Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy Fellowship by Indo-US Science and Technology Forum and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India to undertake a part of his doctoral thesis work at the Advanced Materials and Technologies Laboratory, Virginia Tech. After his doctorate, he joined the Energy Technology Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands, as a postdoctoral fellow in September 2018, where he worked on thermochemical energy storage material for thermal energy storage. He received a postdoctoral fellowship at University Clermont Auvergne (UCA), Clermont, France, in October 2020 to work on the mathematical modeling of nano-enhanced phase change materials for thermal energy storage. At the UCA, he also worked on multi-3D particle tracking velocimetry for indoor airflow study in large enclosures. After completing his fellowship at UCA, he joined the Advanced Materials and Technologies Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA as a research associate in September 2021. He is currently working on multiple projects funded by the US Department of Energy. He is listed in the top 2% of global researchers based on the data given by Elsevier and Stanford University, USA. He is an Early Career Editorial Board member of Elsevier’s e-Prime journal. He served as guest editor of Energies journal, published by MDPI, and Solar Energy journal, published by Frontiers in Energy Research. He is a reviewer of the various international journals published by Elsevier, Wiley, ACS, Taylor & Francis, and MDPI. He has published 35 peer-reviewed journal articles, 13 book chapters in internationally reputed books, and eight conference papers and posters. His publications got more than 2,000 citations and 20 of them h indexed.