2 PhD positions on heat storage for flexible industrial processes

Eindhoven University of Technology is seeking a motivated PhD researcher to help drive the electrification of industrial heat. Join leading researchers and industry partners in developing novel flexibility strategies across Europe.

This research project is part of the FLEXPower project. You’ll play a key role in revolutionizing the European process industry by driving the electrification of industrial heat, ultimately making it more resilient and climate-neutral. A key aspect of electrification of industry using fluctuating renewable electricity from solar and wind, is to allow for flexibility in the industrial demand. In the FLEXPower project, the focus is on heat storage and heat upgrading, particularly for industrial steam systems in food, paper and chemical industry.

The project has 2 PhD positions:
Position 1: Heat storage using high-temperature phase change materials in combination with industrial heat pumps to efficiently generate heat. An important aspect is the dynamic performance of the heat pump. It is expected that you will team up with parallel developments at TNO (see www.tno.nl), where experimental work on dynamic heat pump and heat storage combinations will be carried out.
Position 2: Heat storage using high-temperature thermochemical materials. Thermochemical materials can store and release a large amount of heat at almost constant temperature level. However, their energy density can be significantly higher than for phase change materials, and the output temperature can be tuned by the system pressure. Also here, you will spend time at TNO to exchange industrial process- and thermochemical expertise and carry out experiments.