Debartha Chatterjee
Georgia Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, National Institute of Technology Durgapur, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal
0000-0003-1994-1209
About
Debartha Chatterjee is a thermal sciences researcher working at the intersection of heat and mass transfer, phase-change phenomena, porous media, and thermal systems. His research has been driven by a broad interest in understanding coupled transport processes at interfaces and translating fundamental insights into practical, scalable engineering solutions.
Debartha completed his doctoral research in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where he worked under Prof. Sameer Khandekar from 2018 until Prof. Khandekar’s untimely demise in 2023. He subsequently completed his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of Prof. K. Muralidhar and Prof. Umesh Madanan. He then continued at IIT Kanpur as a postdoctoral fellow/FAIR Fellow during 2025–2026, before joining the Sustainable Thermal Systems Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology in February 2026 as a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Srinivas Garimella.
His doctoral research focused on interfacial vapor generation and solar-driven desalination, with particular emphasis on passive thermal management, porous wick structures, evaporation, and salt crystallization. Rather than relying primarily on sophisticated material architectures, his work explored passive and scalable approaches to achieve heat localization and sustained evaporation using commercially viable materials. This included the development of passive thermosiphon-based thermal decoupling mechanisms and hybrid wick architectures for improved evaporation and salt mitigation.
A major component of his research has been the experimental investigation of the coupled heat and mass transfer processes governing evaporation and crystallization in porous structures. He has studied the influence of environmental and far-field conditions on evaporation, the effects of evaporator–condenser configuration and interfacial gaps in confined systems, and the role of fabric and porous-structure characteristics in salt transport and crystallization. These investigations have involved controlled experiments using solar simulators, environmental chambers, thermal imaging, and other experimental diagnostics, leading to a broader interest in identifying the underlying transport mechanisms rather than focusing solely on device-level performance.
During his subsequent postdoctoral research at IIT Kanpur, he further developed infrared-imaging-based experimental approaches to investigate temperature fields and salt transport in evaporating porous systems. His work has increasingly focused on understanding how geometry, capillary transport, interfacial phenomena, and salt deposition interact to determine evaporation and phase-change behavior.
At Georgia Tech, his current research with Prof. Srinivas Garimella has broadened his exposure toward system-level thermal analysis and modeling, complementing his experimental background with a stronger understanding of thermal-system design and analysis.
His broader research interests include interfacial evaporation and condensation, porous-media transport, capillary-driven flows, phase-change heat and mass transfer, salt crystallization and mitigation, thermal management, and experimental diagnostics of interfacial transport phenomena. He is particularly interested in research questions where macroscopic thermal performance can be traced back to microscale and interfacial transport mechanisms.
Debartha has also been involved in translating research concepts into intellectual property. He is a co-inventor on two granted Indian patents, including a patented technology for solar irradiation-based potable-water generation and a separate technology addressing humidification in oxygen-therapy systems.
His long-term research vision is to combine rigorous experimentation, advanced diagnostics, and thermal-fluid modeling to uncover fundamental transport mechanisms and develop reliable, scalable technologies for applications including water treatment, desalination, thermal management, and other energy- and resource-intensive systems.
Employment
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Georgia Institute of Technology Postdoctoral Fellow2026 - Present
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Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Postdoctoral Fellow2025 - 2026
Education
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Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur PhD2018 - 2025
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National Institute of Technology Durgapur M-Tech2016 - 2018
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Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal B-Tech2011 - 2015
Projects & Funding
Projects & funding information is unavailable.
Publications (6)
- Enhanced vapor generation and salt mitigation in a solar evaporator using a Janus-type hybrid wick Save
- Effect of far-field ambient conditions on interfacial solar vapor generation using a two-phase closed thermosyphon Save
- Continuous vapor generation for thermal-desalination applications using a thermosyphon based heat localization strategy Save
- Hybrid Solar Simulator for Long-Term Testing of Photothermal Materials Save
- Transport phenomena and dynamics of an evaporating water meniscus at low heat fluxes Save
- Copper wick based loop heat pipe for thermal management of a high-power LED module Save