The Silver Combustion Medal 2020
The Silver Combustion Medal 2020
The Silver Combustion Medal of 2020 has been awarded to research resulting from a collaboration between the Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering at the Federico II University, the Combustion Research Institute of the CNR and the IBM Research Center in Zurich. Authors of the research "Insights into incipient soot formation by atomic force microscopy" presented at the 37th International Symposium on Combustion in Dublin in 2018 are Professor Andrea D'Anna and Dr. Gianluigi De Falco from the Friderian Athenaeum, Drs. Mario Commodo and Patrizia Minutolo from CNR, and Drs. Leo Gross, Fabian Schulz, Katharina Kaiser and Gerhard Meyer from IBM.
The International Combustion Institute's Silver Medal is the most internationally coveted award in the field of combustion. It is awarded every two years to the best scientific publication, literally "an outstanding paper" by the Combustion Institute - an international organization based in Pittsburgh - that brings together scientists active in the field of combustion and energy. The award stems from a tough selection from a large number -around 1,500- of scientific papers submitted by research groups from around the world to the Combustion Institute's biennial event, the International Combustion Symposium. The award will be presented to the authors during the 38th International Symposium on Combustion to be held in Adelaide, Australia Jan. 24-29, 2021.
The award, established in 1958, has been given 34 times to researchers from the most prestigious universities and research centers (MIT, Stanford, Ecole Centrale Paris, Paul Scherrer Institute, University of Michigan, Technische Universität Berlin, University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Princeton University, Yale University, Universität Duisburg, Sandia National Laboratories Livermore, University of Sydney, Darmstadt Technischen Hochschule, McGill University of Montreal, Canada, University of California San Diego, Imperial College, London, among others).
Three times the award has been given to Neapolitan researchers belonging to the Department of Chemical Engineering of Materials and Industrial Production and the Combustion Research Institute of the Cn. It had already happened 34 years ago with a study on flame particulate diagnostics (then as the Department of Chemical Engineering: Antonio D'Alessio, Antonio Cavaliere and Federico Beretta) and only 6 years ago with a study on the coagulation of nanoscale particles (Andrea D'Anna and Mariano Sirignano), proving that the Neapolitan research group dealing with combustion has been an excellence in this field for decades. The recognition has particular value given that rankings of academic excellence in combustion, energy and the environment are generally dominated by the United States, in number of research centers, and China, second only to the U.S., in number of published studies.
The award-winning work illustrates the scientific progress made on the problem of the formation, and subsequent emission, from combustion systems of fine dust/nano particles. The work shows the first images of the molecules that, like pieces of a puzzle, make up soot particles. The images were made using an advanced ultra-high-resolution atomic force microscope located at the IBM Research Center in Zurich that allows us to see the individual atoms within the molecules. The emission of particulate matter from apparently "clean" combustion systems has been brought to the attention of the scientific community precisely because of research efforts undertaken in recent years by the research group of the Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering and the Combustion Research Institute of the CNR in Naples. Understanding how nanoscale particles are formed in combustion and studying their chemical-physical and morphological characteristics makes it possible to make an informed assessment of the impact that all combustion processes-from automotive engines, marine engines and aircraft turbines to industrial and domestic combustion-may have on health and climate.
The work was published in the Proceedings of the Combustion Instituteand received a Research Highlights from the journal Nature titled 'First portrait of a soot molecule: Imaging techniques reveal honeycomb structure at the heart of a soot-particle precursor'.
Written by Redazione c/o COINOR: redazionenews@unina.it | redazionesocial@unina.it