Aldo Steinfeld (PhD University of Minnesota, 1989) is Full Professor of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich, where he holds the Chair of Renewable Energy Carriers. From 2004-2014 he directed the Solar Technology Laboratory at the Paul Scherrer Institute. At ETH, he served as the Head of the Institute of Energy Technology (2005-2007) and Associate Head of the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (2007-2009). He was member of the Board of Directors of the International Solar Energy Society (2015-2019).
His research program focusses on high-temperature heat/mass transfer phenomena, multi-phase reacting flows, thermochemistry and functional redox materials. These are applied in the development of technologies for concentrated solar power and solar fuels production, direct air capture of CO2 and its utilization, energy storage and carbon-neutral sustainable energy systems.
He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Solar Energy Engineering (2005–2009), co-Editor of the CRC Handbook of Hydrogen Energy (2014), and is currently serving in several editorial boards. He has authored over 350 refereed journal papers, filed 26 patents, and supervised 56 PhD theses. His contributions to science and education have been recognized with the ASME Rice Award (2006), the Yellott Award (2008), the European Research Council Advanced Grant (2012), the International Solar Energy Society’s Farrington Daniels Award (2013), the Heat Transfer Memorial Award (2013), the ASME Kreith Energy Award (2016), the SOLARIS Life-Long Contribution Award by Japan’s Heat Transfer Society (2021), the Energy Globe World Award (2021), and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Sustainable Engineering Forum Research Award (2022). Two spin-offs emerged from his research: Climeworks commercializes the technology for CO2 capture from air, and Synhelion commercializes the technology for solar fuel production. Prof. Steinfeld is member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences and the Pan-American Academy of Engineering.