Professor Javad Mostaghimi (MIE) is director of the Centre for Advanced Coating Technologies (CACT). He has been elected fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors. (photo by Daria Perevezentsev)
Professor Javad Mostaghimi (MIE) has been elected fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors. The Academy honours inventors worldwide who have demonstrated “innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.”
Throughout his career, Mostaghimi has made a series of breakthroughs in the field of plasma physics. In 2017, with his PhD student Sina Alavi (MIE PhD 1T8), he developed an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) torch with a unique conical design. This conical torch has been a game-changer in the field of ICP; its innovative geometry allows for a significant increase in gas velocity, reducing argon consumption by 50-70% and leading to a more than four-fold increase in power density compared to conventional cylindrical torches. It also reduces the time and cost of analysis tenfold and saves at least 2M litres of argon and 100 MWh of electricity per unit annually, delivering unparalleled efficiency and sustainability for a wide range of analytical and industrial processes.
More recently, Mostaghimi and his colleagues, through the startup Kimia Analytics, have pioneered the development of the first-ever mobile hybrid ICP-mass spectrometer, powered by the conical torch at its core. This torch, by reducing power and gas needs, supports a smaller power supply and gas cylinder, and enables, for the first time ever, a fully air-cooled interface, eliminating the need for bulky and expensive water chillers. This design reduces the size, weight and operating costs of the spectrometer, making it truly mobile and highly cost-effective for field applications.
Mostaghimi is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among many other leading professional societies. He is a recipient of the most prestigious awards of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), including the 75th Anniversary Medal of the ASME Heat Transfer Division, the Heat Transfer Memorial Award, and the FitzRoy Medal. In 2019, he was inducted into the ASM-TSS Thermal Spray Hall of Fame. He has also received the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering’s Robert W. Angus Medal — their highest honour — and the NSERC Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research.
“As an engineer, inventor and entrepreneur, Professor Javad Mostaghimi has had an exceptional impact on plasma physics, significantly advancing the commercial and scientific possibilities of this field through his technological innovations,” says Christopher Yip, Dean of U of T Engineering.
“On behalf of the entire faculty, our warmest congratulations to him on this richly deserved honour.”
– This story was originally published on the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering News Site on December 20, 2024, by Carolyn Farrell.
