Heat batteriesFifty 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.
ChallengeA 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 descriptionYou 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 locationThe 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.