PhD on Integration of Design and Control for Next Generation of Electrolyzers

The Control Systems Group at the Electrical Engineering Department in Eindhoven University of Technology has an opening for a PHD position for 1 fte of 4 years in the project

FlexEchem: Flexible ElectroChemical Plant of The Future.

FlexEchem is a collaboration between Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, and several industrial parties.

Project description
Replacement of fossil fuels directly with renewable energy sources such is essential in the decarbonization of our current economy. A significant part of our economy is the chemical industry which currently relies heavily on the use the fossil fuels as the main energy source.
On the way to electrification of the chemical industry, an essential question to answer is how to design chemical plants so that they can operate according to the natural frequency of the renewables energy. To this end, FlexEchem project aims to study the design, control and operation technology for the electrochemical plant of the future that runs with high intensity current and is economically viable. More specifically, the project will develop a new integrated approach (integrated process design, control and operations) and a complete process system (reactor, sensors, actuators etc.) for the direct electrochemical conversion of CO2 to C2H4 under industrial conditions.

Position description
In this project the PHD student will focus on the development of new integrated design and control approaches for flexible operation of chemical processes under multiple scales and multiple operation modes. To this end, the PhD student will develop new flexibility and controllability measures. Multiple operating modes and transitions among them pose a challenge for the existing (linear) control strategies. Therefore, nonlinear (centralized/decentralized), linear parameter varying control and operation strategies will be investigated.

Tasks:

• Study the existing literature in Integration of Process Design and Control
• Extending the state of the art in Integration of Process Design and Control in the context of renewable intermittent energy sources
• Development of new measures for flexibility, controllability, operability of processes under multiple timescales and operation modes
• Development of nonlinear control and operation strategies
• Dissemination of research results to industrial partners via workshops , presentations.
• Dissemination of research results to international peer-reviews journals and conferences
• Teaching assistantship and supervision of Master, internship and Bachelor end project students
• Writing a dissertation and defending it.

Group Description

The research mission of the Control Systems Group is to master complexity present in mechatronics, power systems, automotive systems and industrial processes. The group focuses on fundamental research in model reduction, spatial temporal systems, Lyapunov methods for real-time control and distributed systems, and system identification. Furthermore, many industrial projects are being carried out in the area of automotive, process control, wireless sensor networks, power systems. The group actively participates in the Dutch Institute of Systems and Control (DISC). For more detailed information on the activities of the group please check

http://tue.nl/cs/