Do you want to develop sustainable energy storage solutions for the future? Do you want to use your curiosity, technical knowledge and enthusiasm to contribute to the UN sustainability goals and create a sustainable world? In our multidisciplinary research team, we have a PhD vacancy in ‘Energy storage in aqueous acid-base flow batteries.’
Join our team in improving and designing in close cooperation with Aquabattery an affordable, safe and sustainable long duration energy battery based on abundant materials. This innovative aqueous acid-base flow battery is awarded as being the most innovative battery concept by the European Sustainable Energy Innovation Award 2025.
Your project In the years to come, solar and wind will dominate global electricity production. But renewable energy supply is not constant - sunlight fades, wind slows. To safeguard 24/7 energy availability and flexibility in generation and supply, long duration energy storage systems are essential. This allows society to store excess renewable energy for hours, days, or even seasons, and use it when needed. Long duration energy storage systems are crucial to build a fully sustainable society and make green power available whenever we need it.
Flow batteries store electricity in the form of chemical energy. The acid-base battery is a flow battery that stores excess energy in aqueous solutions of acid, base and salt, each kept in a separate tank. To store and generate power, the solutions are pumped through a membrane stack. The membranes control the transport of ions. The power output depends on the membrane area, while the storage capacity depends on the volume of the solutions, giving flow batteries a high degree of flexibility.
The membranes used in acid-base flow batteries are ion exchange membranes and bipolar membranes. A bipolar membrane consists of an anion and a cation exchange membrane combined with an (organic) electro-catalyst, forming a bipolar junction. When electricity is stored, water splitting at the junction occurs. Oppositely, when electricity is needed, protons and hydroxyl ions recombine at the junction forming water. Within our research team you will work on the development of bipolar membranes for enhanced water splitting and recombination for energy storage using electrospinning, thus contributing to the next generation acid-base flow cells.
Electrospinning is a nanofiber production technique to prepare hierarchical structures with highly tunable properties for specific separations. It uses an electrical voltage to generate fibers from a polymer solution that are collected as a fibrous mat. Preferably green solvents are used. Our research group has a worldwide unique triple electrospinner in which two different polymers (i.e. anion and cation exchange polymer) and a catalyst can be electrospun together simultaneously, thus creating a fully intermingled bipolar junction in one step, while offering a wide diversity of tunability for performance improvement.
Scalability is a leading principle in this framework: the concepts you develop must be easy to scale up to obtain large production volumes at high speed to guarantee large scale commercial application. For characterization and performance evaluation of the produced membranes, you will use a wide variety of techniques and methods available in our state-of-the-art labs. Obviously, membrane performance in acid-base flow battery systems, both lab and pilot scale will be evaluated.
The research team Eindhoven University of Technology is a leading international university within the Brainport region where scientific curiosity meets a hands-on mindset. We work in an open and collaborative way with high-tech industries to tackle complex societal challenges. Our responsible and respectful approach ensures impact — today and in the future. TU/e is home to over 13,000 students and more than 7,000 staff, forming a diverse
, vibrant and highly international academic community. The TU/e offers academic education that is driven by fundamental and applied research. We combine scientific curiosity with a hands-on mentality. Our educational philosophy is based on personal attention and room for individual ambitions and talents. Our research meets the highest international standards of quality. We push the limits of science, which puts us at the forefront of rapidly emerging areas of research.
You will perform your PhD research in a multidisciplinary research team. The research will be conducted in the state-of-the-art laboratories of the research group Membrane Materials and Processes (MM/P –
https://www.tue.nl/en/research/research-groups/membrane-materials-and-processes), part of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the TU/e (The Netherlands). The research of the group is dedicated to the design, development, characterization and application of polymer membranes to control mass transport in sustainable processes. The research combines and integrates materials chemistry, materials engineering and process technology. Application areas are water and energy, with a strong focus on the storage ang generation of energy, the recovery and reuse of resources and the valorization of waste streams. Next to fundamental academic research, application-oriented research in close collaboration with the industry is stimulated.
The research will be performed in close collaboration with the industrial partner AquaBattery (
https://aquabattery.com). The research team is complemented with another PhD student working on electrode development for the acid-base flow battery and both PhD students will work closely together.