Institute of Thermal Engineering

The Institute of Thermal Engineering (ITE) is originated from the Thermal Power Equipment Group of Mechanical Engineering Department of Tsinghua University in 1953. It was the first thermal and power research institution ever established in China. ITE nowadays belongs to the Discipline of Thermal Engineering, a key discipline of the nation.

ITE has 32 academic staffs at the moment, including 1 academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 12 professors, 13 associate professors, 1 lecturers, and 3 senior engineers, and 1 technicians. 80% of the staffs have PhD degree. Each year around one hundred postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers work in this well-equipped, advanced and open institution.

The most important tasks throughout ITE’s history are talent training, fundamental research and technology development. Over the half century after its establishment, ITE has contributed to a great extent to the national economic development in both education and research.

ITE focuses on the clean energy development and utilization of fossil fuels, including pulverized-coal combustion, fluidized-bed combustion, coal gasification, pollution control (SO2, NOx, PM, Hg and other heavy metals, and toxic substances from fire, etc.), utilization of solid waste as resource, renewable energy (biomass, co-burning, solar, etc.), and new energy (hydrogen, fuel cell, etc.). The fundamental research on gas-solid multiphase flow, thermal measurement and large-scale numerical simulation methods are also the subjects in ITE’s research. In recent years, Carbon capture and low-carbon energy research has become the center topic in ITE.

The important technologies developed by ITE includes the low-NOx and high-temperature air-pulverized coal combustion, large-scale ultra-supercritical coal-fired circulating fluidized-bed, wet/semi-dry/dry FGD, de-NOx and multi-pollutant control, municipal and industrial waste incineration, coal gasification, alkali soil amelioration by WFGD gypsum, low emission/low heat value combustion for heavy gas turbine, PM removal by Electrostatic Fabric Filter, co-combustion and control of coal and biomass. In fundamental research, ITE has also achieved in steam-water natural circulation and heat-transfer, direct modeling methods and mathematical models for dense gas-solid two phase flow, fractal characterization of char and sorbent particles, PM formation and removal, flame synthesis of nano-particles, capture and utilization of CO2, Hg release mechanism in coal combustion, combustion mechanism of coal particle under micro-gravity, and mine ventilation and disaster control. ITE has undertaken 4 National Basic Research and Development Program (973 Program), and other R& D projects form the National High-Tech. R & D Programs (863 Program), National Key R&D projects, Natural Science Foundation, as well as industrial cooperation.

ITE has established far-reaching exchange and cooperation with famous research institutions, multination companies, and international organizations. The collaborating partners of ITE includes, Siemens, ABB, Alstom, EDF, IHI, Toshiba, MIT, Cambridge, Imperial, Tokyo, Aachen and Stuttgart University, etc. 6 famous scholars from both academia and industry in Germany and Japan have become the guest professors of ITE. Dozens of international students/postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars have worked in ITE.

Since 1987 and 1994 respectively, ITE has been hosting the International Symposium on Coal Combustion (ISCC) every four years and Sino-Korea Clean Energy Workshop every two years. The 33rd International Symposium on Combustion 2010 in Beijing was also hosted by ITE.

ITE is a member of the Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, and has established several important research organizations including the National Engineering Research Center for Clean Combustion of Industrial Boiler and Domestic Coal, the Tsinghua-Toshiba Energy and Environment Research Center, the Tsinghua-Tiansu Energy-saving and Environment Research Center, the Tsinghua University—Yingde Gases Joint Research Center, and The Center for Ecological Restoration and Carbon Fixation of Saline-Alkali Land.

Contact: Prof. Zhang Hai (Director)

Office phone: +86-10-62773153

E-mail:haizhang@tsinghua.edu.cn

Mailing address: Department of Thermal Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing，P.R. China

Postal Code: 100084