To enable the energy transition, it must be possible to store renewable energy efficiently and on a large scale. Recently, scientists have increasingly investigated metals as carbon-free chemical energy storage systems. The A-STEAM project now focuses on aluminium as a potential alternative energy source. The research project, led by Professor Christian Hasse, will receive around €2.5 million in funding from the European Research Council over a five-year period.
The advantages of aluminium
Aluminium has a particularly high-energy storage capacity. This makes it an ideal candidate for innovative processes to decarbonise industry. At high temperatures, aluminium reacts with water vapour and oxidises, producing valuable products that can be used for both electricity generation and chemical synthesis.
On-site production of hydrogen
A major problem with hydrogen transport to date has been the need to transport it either at extremely low temperatures (-253°C) or at very high pressures (>300 bar), which is very energy intensive. The A-STEAM project addresses this by transporting aluminium as an energy carrier, rather than hydrogen itself, to produce hydrogen on site as required. This makes aluminium an efficient carrier for hydrogen, solving transport issues and making it ideal for long-term storage.
Scientific challenges and methods
The reaction of aluminium with water vapour under pressure is a complex, multiscale, multi-physics process that remains largely unexplored. “A-STEAM will address this challenge by investigating all scales of the process, from single particle combustion to turbulent flames with millions of aluminium particles. It will use advanced scientific methods: sophisticated modelling, high-performance computing and specially adapted experiments. At the heart of A-STEAM are high-resolution simulations on high-performance computers using advanced numerical methods.
Sources:
Darmstadt University of Technology. „Forschungsprojekt A-STEAM: Aluminium als alternativer Energieträger.“ Accessed 10 July 2024. https://www.tu-darmstadt.de/universitaet/aktuelles_meldungen/einzelansicht_446784.de.jsp.