Pablo Castellanos Carnicero has been named this year’s winner of the Juan Aroca Prize for his Master’s Thesis (TFM), awarded by the Official Association of Industrial Engineers of Aragon and La Rioja (COIIAR), for his project “Design and development of an experimental facility for the evaluation of heat transfer fluids and PCM emulsions: Cooling of high-power computer systems”.
This young industrial engineer has been a member of the Thermal Engineering and Energy Systems Group (GITSE) at I3A through an introductory research scholarship. He is currently studying space engineering in Madrid, where he hopes to pursue his career: “I’m passionate about space exploration, both human exploration missions and scientific missions. I want to contribute to the development of space missions that enable us to discover new things about the universe.” He is currently studying for a Master’s in Space Engineering at Carlos III University in Madrid.
He studied at the University of Zaragoza, where he completed a degree in Industrial Design and Product Development Engineering. Upon finishing his studies, he began working in Switzerland for The North Face. However, as he explains, he realised he had “lots of questions about how certain things work and that, with what I’d learnt up to that point, I wasn’t able to answer them”. So he decided to return to Unizar and undertake a Master’s in Industrial Engineering at the School of Engineering and Architecture (EINA). This year, Pablo Castellanos Carnicero was awarded the Juan Aroca Prize for his Master’s Thesis (TFM) by the Official Association of Industrial Engineers of Aragon and La Rioja (COIIAR), for his project “Design and development of an experimental facility for the evaluation of heat transfer fluids and PCM emulsions: Cooling of high-power computer systems”.
With a grant from the I3A, he joined the GITSE research group, where he undertook the Master’s thesis that has just won an award, and where he also benefited from the collaboration of the Zaragoza Computer Architecture Group (GAZ). His work forms part of one of the group’s research strands aimed at improving the heat extraction capacity of data centre chip cooling systems by using emulsions of phase-change materials (PCMs) as a heat transfer fluid, replacing the water currently in use.
The theory shows that this type of solution could represent a significant improvement, due to the advantage offered by the phase change. However, “this needs to be verified experimentally, and there are currently no studies on the subject – and this is where my work comes in,” says Pablo Castellanos.
As part of his Master’s thesis, he has designed, developed, commissioned and validated an experimental setup that will enable researchers at GITSE to study this new type of emulsion. “I have only used it to analyse water so far, but there are plans to expand the setup slightly so that it can accommodate these emulsions in the coming months.”.
He describes his time with the research group at the I3A as “excellent” thanks to the support he received, adding, “It has been a very enriching experience”. “I’ve had colleagues who have helped me in every way they could; they’ve provided me with the necessary resources to carry out my work and have also enabled me – and funded my attendance – at an international conference on refrigeration and cooling technologies to present our work.”
He says he would advise his fellow students at EINA to take an interest “in the work carried out at GITSE, because there are plenty of opportunities to conduct research and contribute to projects that bring real value to society”.
On 25 September, he received the award in recognition of all the work he had carried out. “For me, it is recognition of my efforts and further motivation to keep working towards my goals,” he says. The event took place at the Young Engineers’ Night, which this year once again brought together more than 100 students from the Master’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and a dozen companies from the sector. The award includes a cash prize of 1,000 euros and is named after the first dean of the Association of Industrial Engineers, Juan Aroca.
COIIAR Awards: https://coiiar.es/2026/09/26/pablo-castellanos-premio-juan-aroca-2026-en-la-v-noche-de-los-jovenes-ingenieros/
Photograph: COIIAR
