Are you eager to contribute to a breakthrough in the field of renewable energy? Energy storage in general and heat batteries in particular play an essential role in our future energy system.
A promising heat battery concept is based on a packed bed of salt hydrate particles. You will contribute to the main challenge of such a heat battery: stabilizing a bed of crystal hydrate particles undergoing multiple charging/discharging cycles.

Job Description

Heat batteries
Fifty percent of our daily energy usage is in the form of thermal energy. In view of the energy challenges ahead of us, compact heat storage could offer opportunities to bridge the mismatch between availability and consumption of energy. Inorganic crystal hydrates have the potential to be used as storage media in heat batteries. Discharge happens via hydration reactions involving
a phase transition of the crystal lattice due to water incorporation.

Challenge
A heat battery consists of a packed bed of salt hydrate particles. The challenge is to stabilize beds of salt hydrate particles as salt hydrates undergo significant volume changes during (de)hydration cycles.

Project aim and description
You will develop composites consisting of a crystal hydrate and an (in)organic binder or coating. To understand the impact of the stabilizer on the crystal hydrate, you will investigate the hydration/dehydration reactions of the composite particle: the cyclic stability and the (de)hydration kinetics with TGA-DSC. In a second step you will investigate the behavior of the newly developed composites in a particle bed representative for a real heat battery. You might involve NMR and CT techniques for studying particle beds.

Working location
The work will be done in the group Transport in Permeable Media (TPM) at the Applied Physics department of the Eindhoven University of Technology. About 6 PhD's and postdoc are working on several aspects of thermochemical materials based on salt hydrates. TPM owns the DarcyLab (https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-labs/darcy-lab/ ), which has a wide range of NMR imaging facilities, CT, XRD and Thermo Analytical instruments to monitor and visualize the water dynamics during phase changes.  The project is embedded in larger project aiming to for a real-life demonstration of a heat battery.

Do you have a PhD degree in physics, physical-chemistry or material science?
Do you have experience with NMR imaging, CT or other advanced experimental techniques?
Do you dream of contributing to a breakthrough in the area of renewable energy?
Do you have good programming skills (Matlab, C, C++)?

If so, you are the right candidate for this position.

• A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university with the possibility to present your work at international conferences.
• A full-time employment for 2 years.
• You will have free access to high-quality training programs for research and valorization,  professional development courses for PhD students, and didactical courses of the TEACH training program.
• A gross monthly salary and benefits in accordance with the Collective Labor Agreement for Dutch Universities.
• A broad package of fringe benefits (including an excellent technical infrastructure, moving expenses, and savings schemes).
• Family-friendly initiatives are in place, such as an international spouse program, and excellent on-campus children day care and sports facilities.