Decarbonizing the energy sector is urgently needed via replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources to combat global warming. The metal fuel concept is considered a promising approach to the storage and transport of renewable energy to overcome its seasonal intermittency and geographic distribution. In particular, iron powder has been proposed as a safe, easily storable, and commonly traded fuel. Its combustion product, iron oxides, can be reduced back into iron powder through hydrogen-based direct reduction using renewable energy. These combustion and reduction processes enable a net CO2-free energy cycle.
This PhD project is part of a European collaborative project (MPI SusMat, UC Louvain, TU Delft). The ultimate goal of the project is to disentangle the correlation among alloying elements, microstructure, chemistry evolution, and reaction kinetics during combustion and hydrogen-based direct reduction cycles of iron-based powders, revealing the critical role of alloying elements in the redox cycles. The acquired fundamental knowledge will facilitate the integration of waste materials or fine ores into future sustainable energy cycles.

REQUIRED SKILLS:

• Solid background in Materials Science, Metallurgy, Chemistry, Physics or a related field.
• Knowledge in microstructure formation and physical metallurgy
• A strong inclination towards experimental work
• Excitement and strong motivation for the research
• Proficiency in English to communicate effectively on scientific topics

OPTIONAL SKILLS:

• Knowledge of electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques
• Experience in software programming (e.g., phyton and MATLAB)

YOUR TASKS WILL INCLUDE:

• To develop a thermodynamics model to predict phase stability
• To conduct hydrogen-based direct reduction experiments and investigate the reduction kinetics of iron powders
• The microstructure characterization of the reduced samples using microscopy techniques (e.g., SEM, EBSD, EDX), X-ray diffraction, and atom probe tomography
• To evaluate, analyze, and interpret the results
• Manage the collaborative project
• Publish scientific results in renowned international research journals and scientific conferences