FlexEChem: Flexible Electrochemical Plant of the Future
The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have been successful in receiving an award in the NWA-ECCM Call to research the flexible operation of electrochemical plants. We are seeking interested PhD candidates to investigate the design, operation and control strategies of such ‘Electrochemical Plants of the Future’ that is essential to allow for renewable energy to be paired with the production of green bulk chemicals. Open positions cover experimental operation of CO2 electrolyzers, design and modelling of such systems, and researching the process/design/control of such systems. Such research is essential to bring promising new energy technologies to scale.
TU Delft is a renowned research-university, located in the Netherlands. Its research efforts in Chemical Engineering are leading in Europe. Two PhD positions are to be executed in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at TU Delft in the broader e-Refinery Institute at TU Delft. The e-Refinery Institute covers a broad research area with >75 researchers focussing on advancing different aspects of electrochemical technologies. The final PhD position is positioned within TU/e in the Control Systems Group of Department of Electrical Engineering. TU/e is located in the Netherlands in the center of the one of most powerful technology hubs in the world, Brainport Eindhoven and it ranks first when it comes to collaborative research with advanced industries. The Control Systems group has a long and history in modeling, system identification and control of dynamical systems.
The positions are partly financed by government funding, partly on company funding. Note that for PhD studies in the Netherlands, you do not apply for grad school, take classes and find a thesis advisor later, but you choose a topic and get started on research right away with classes dispersed over four years. It is a fully paid position as an employee of the university.
The Research Topic
Replacement of fossil fuels directly with renewable energy sources is essential in the decarbonization of our current economy. A significant part of our economy is the chemical industry, which currently relies heavily on the use the fossil fuels as the main energy source. An essential question to answer in the electrification of the chemical industry is how to design chemical plants so that they can operate according to the natural frequency of the renewables energy.
To this end, the FlexEchem project aims to study the design, control and operation technology for the electrochemical plant of the future that runs with high intensity current and is economically viable. More specifically, the overall project will develop a new integrated approach (integrated process design, control and operations) and a complete process system (reactor, sensors, actuators etc.) for the direct electrochemical conversion of CO2 to C2H4 under industrial conditions. FlexEchem is a collaboration between Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, and several industrial parties. We are looking in total for three PhD students.
The Position
PhD: Integration of Design and Control for conversion of CO2 | TU Eindhoven
The PhD position is concerned with the integration of process design and control strategies to develop electrochemical plants that are able to follow the dynamics of the intermittent energy resources. The relevant research areas include performance, controllability operability measures for load following plants, modeling for control, model based process design and control strategies. This research is going to be executed within the Smart Process Operation and Control Lab in the Control Systems group in the Electrical Engineering Department of TU/e and will be supervised by Assistant Professor Leyla Özkan.