Thermochemical energy storage for sustainable energy solutions
NaMeS students are invited to IPC PAS Seminar within Dream Chemistry Lecture Series delivered by:
Dr. Danny Müller
Institute of Applied Synthetic Chemistry,
Vienna University of Technology - TU Wien, Austria
Thursday, 23th May, 2019, 10.00
Assembly hall of the IPC PAS
Abstract
Mapping the actual energy landscape, heat is the most ubiquitously used form of energy including electricity generation and industrial purposes. Only for the thermal generation of electricity, the International Energy Agency estimates the global energy loss through heat losses to account for 2/3 of the necessary primary energy. Thermal energy storage could reveal as a true game-changer, allowing for a notable decrease of necessary energy, thus reducing the energy footprint. This could assist a widespread acceptance and utilization of renewable energy, as well as the use of fluctuating energy sources. Waste heat sources, but also natural energy sources such as the sun or wind suffer from a distinct temporal mismatch between energy production and consumption that needs to be overcome. The development of efficient heat storage concepts allows herein for a temporal shift, enabling utilization of excess heat, collected in times of high availability / low demand, during times of low availability / high demand. In other words, the success of many renewable energy concepts and waste heat recycling in today’s energy landscape is directly related to matching supply and demand and further, directly to development and availability of efficient heat storage technologies.
Dr. Danny Müller focusses together with his collaborators on the investigation of novel materials tailored for specific thermochemical storage applications. Based on a systematic selection process over 5,000 potential materials were screened and investigated for their potential in energy storage. In the last few years they developed according to the applied reactive gas (H2O, CO2, NH3, O2) various thermochemical storage solutions for different temperature levels allowing for application in housing, combination with solar thermal and industrial waste heat recycling. The contribution concentrates on the way from a systematic laboratory study to a first prototype of a storage system, the applicational potential of the technology and current obstacles on the way to a commercial use.
