Session: 17-01: Symposium Steinfeld - Solar Energy Perspectives

Paper Number: 142355

142355 - From the Lab to the Market - Prof. Aldo Steinfeld and His Cooperation With the German Aerospace Center 

Abstract: 

Over the last twenty years the groups of Prof. Aldo Steinfeld at the Paul-Scherrer-Institute (PSI) and at ETH Zurich (ETH) had a close and synergistic cooperation with the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) institutes of Engineering Thermodynamic, Solar Research, Combustion Technology, and Future Fuels. The joint goal was to research and develop technologies for using concentrated solar radiation for efficient renewable fuel production.

After the Kyoto protocol the interest on preventing CO₂ emissions rose. In the beginning of the millennium several research groups mainly in Europe, Japan, and the USA were working on concentrated solar technologies for thermochemical fuel production especially hydrogen. Three different groups of thermochemical redox cycle reaction were developed: volatile metal oxides, solid metal oxides, and sulfur. ETH, PSI, and DLR worked together and in parallel on many of these processes. The joint goal was to enhance the knowledge on the reactions, the development and scale-up of the technologies, and the education of young researchers to strengthen the scientific community as well as start-up companies.

The presentation will give an insight on the most important developments. This includes reactors for the use on solar towers, and solar beam-down systems. The design and development of easy to handle but powerful solar simulators. The basic understanding and development of reactive materials as well as concepts how to handle them under very high temperatures. A very important research topic was and will continue to be the efficiency of the processes. The teams worked on minimizing sensible heat, recuperating heat flows, and different heat transfer technologies.

An important part of the cooperation was the SOLLAB a virtual research institute started by ETH, PSI, DLR, CIEMAT from Spain and CNRS PROMES from France. A key part of the cooperation was and still is the annual doctoral colloquium which brings together PhD students from the leading European research institutions on concentrated solar technologies. Based on the scientific work a large number of outstanding researchers were educated and moved from one institute to another.

Based on this development many new research groups were founded all over the world especially by PhDs and PostDocs from ETH, PSI and a few by DLR. The application of the technologies was carried out by former students from the three groups. The Swiss company Climeworks develops and operates direct air capture plants e.g. in Iceland (DAC). The Swiss company Synhelion brings solar fuel production into the market. It started its research at ETH, moved with their concept to DLR for a scale-up in the solar simulator and a demonstration of a solar tower. It acquired the German company Heliocon a DLR spin-off - now named Synhelion Germany - which is specialized on heliostat fields and control systems. This summer the first industrial demonstration started its operation in Julich, Germany.

Without Prof. Steinfeld this development would have never happened!

Presenting Author: Christian Sattler German Aerospace Center

Presenting Author Biography: Prof. Dr. Christian Sattler studied chemistry in Bonn, Germany. In 1997 he received his PhD and joined the German Aerospace Center DLR. He was guest scientist at Unversidade Federal de Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil. From 2015 to 2022 he was professor for solar fuel production at TU Dresden, Germany. From 2021 to 2023 he was acting Divisional Board Member for Energy and Transport and since 2021 he is Director of the DLR Institute of Future Fuels and professor for solar fuel production at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. He is also Vice-President of the Hydrogen Europe Research association and as an ASME lifetime fellow member of the ASME Clean Energy Technical Group.

Authors:

Christian Sattler German Aerospace Center
Pitz-Paal Robert German Aerospace Center