Project Info
Thermochemical Energy Storage of Reactive Oxide Particles
Greg Jackson | mailto:gsjackso@mines.edu
Energy storage is vital for increasing penetration of intermittent renewables into our electric power grid. Thermochemical energy provides high specific energy at high-temperatures for coupling with various heat sources including concentrating solar, nuclear power, and waste process heat. Our group has demonstrated some low-cost reactive oxides (Ca-based perovskites) that can reduce at high temperatures in low O2 partial pressures to storage energy. We need to further our research on the kinetics of these processes in order to assess their scalability for commercial application.
More Information
We have published the following papers that are available online (and other papers are in review for publication).
1. Imponenti, L., Albrecht, K.J., Wands, J.W., Sanders, M.D, and Jackson, G.S. (2017), “Thermochemical energy storage in strontium-doped calcium manganites for concentrating solar power applications”, Solar Energy, 151, 1-13.
2. Albrecht, K.J., Jackson, G.S., and Braun, R.J. (2016), “Thermodynamically consistent modeling of redox-stable perovskite oxides for thermochemical energy conversion and storage”, Applied Energy, 165, 285-296.
3. Imponenti, L., Albrecht, K., Braun, R.J., and Jackson, G.S., (2016), “Measuring Thermochemical Energy Storage Capacity with Redox Cycles of Doped-CaMnO3”, ECS Transactions, 72(7), 11-22, 229th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society, San Diego, May 2016.
Grand Engineering: –
Student Preparation
Qualifications
Student must have taken undergraduate thermodynamics and have a limited working knowledge of data acquisition/instruments. The student will preferably have a bit of experience in MATLAB, which is the environment in which we do our data analysis.
Time Commitment
Approximately 30 hours/month
Skills/Techniques Gained
The student will learn a lot about data acquisition, about thermal energy storage, concentrating solar power, and reactive materials. The student will get to work with a senior graduate student and learn good experimental practices for research.
Mentoring Plan
Student will meet once a week with professor in group meeting as needed. Senior grad student will provide in lab support and training.