Lab research areas

The laboratory addresses the urgent need to decarbonize the energy storage and generation sector by investigating the use of zero-carbon fuels, including hydrogen and ammonia. Engine designs must be updated to account for fuel flexibility as the transition to a lower carbon economy takes place, and the lab work on several concepts, such as plasma-assisted combustion and ignition and porous media burners, to address the demands posed by these fuels.

Scholar Profile

In the Aerospace Engineering Department at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Associate Prof. Lefkowitz is addressing the complex challenges involved in future aerospace applications of combustion, such as the reduction of emissions in order to mitigate global warming, the attempt to reduce fuel usage without causing engine blowout at high altitudes, and overcoming challenges limiting the implementation of high-speed air-breathing engines.

These require the development of innovative new technologies which will enable engine operation in conditions approaching the limits of combustibility, requiring the stabilizing of flames near the flammability limit, initiating and holding flames at supersonic speeds and controlling detonation waves. To this end Associate Prof. Lefkowitz has been applying a combination of advanced infra-red laser diagnostics together with a fundamental theoretical approach based on the chemistry and dynamics of reacting flows in liquid, gaseous and plasma phases.

Aside from his doctoral research at Princeton University, Associate Prof. Lefkowitz worked at the Air Force Research Laboratory at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. There he served as a National Research Council Associate, part of a program conducted by the U.S. government to promote excellence in scientific and technological research.