The National Water and Energy Center (NWEC) of the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) organized a one-hour webinar by Prof. Sotirios Karellas of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) on 5-September-2022. The webinar was titled Harvesting waste heat from the industry and heat from hybrid renewable energy sources towards tri-generation. Prof. Karellas explained the importance of waste heat recovery in relation to combating global warming challenges and that waste heat recovery is particularly beneficial for the industrial sector.  Prof. Karellas also mentioned that there are two options of using waste heat, as either heat or electricity. For generating electricity, Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is often employed. Prof. Karellas provided a brief introduction to ORC and in addition, mentioned the several challenges facing ORC.

He presented examples of several thermodynamic cycles developed as part of his research and their usefulness for tri-generation, i.e. generating electricity, heating, and cooling; these cycles have been practically demonstrated at NTUA. The webinar was attended by several faculty members and students from the UAEU as well as others from the community.

Dr. Sotirios Karellas is a Professor with the School of Mechanical Engineering of NTUA, Director of the laboratory of Thermal Processes, visiting Professor at the Technische Universität München and the Universität Bayreuth Germany. He is member of the Greek delegation to the Programme Committee “Secure Clean and Efficient Energy” under the Horizon 2020, acting as an Expert (2014 – 2019) and as a National Representative (2019-2021). He is an alternate National Representative of Greece to the Coal and Steel Committee (COSCO) (2014 – 2019). He is a specialist on central and decentralized energy systems, Carbon Capture Storage and Utilisation, energy storage, Hydrogen energy, Zero Energy Buildings, co-, poly-generation, solar-thermal energy, biomass, Organic Rankine Cycle technology and heat pumps, Waste to energy. He has over 150 relevant publications in scientific Journals and Conferences. He has supervised 6 Ph.Ds and he is currently supervising 7 Ph.D students at NTUA working in the fields of carbon capture and utilization, energy conversion systems for Electricity, Heating and Cooling. He has participated in a large number of projects at the NTUA (2006-present) and at the Technische Universität München (2001-2006), having both technical and coordination responsibilities. He has significant industrial experience in power production plants, co/tri-generation systems, heat pumps, building heating systems and chillers. He is full member of the editorial board of 4 scientific journals dealing with central-decentralized energy systems and renewable energy sources.

The National Water and Energy Center (NWEC) is a research center at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). It provides high quality applied scientific research, environmental impact assessment studies and consultancy in the areas of sustainability of water and energy resources. It also aims to evaluate and support information related to water and energy in UAE in partnership with government institutions and national and local bodies, through information, statistics, and scientific research to enhance the decision-making process and to achieve the sustainability of water and energy resources. The Director of NWEC is Dr. Dalal Matar Al Shamsi. She is also holding the position of an Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences, College of Science at UAEU. NWEC can be contacted at NWEC@uaeu.ac.ae.