Project description
Calcium carbide-based composites: sustainable high-temperature waste heat storage
Storing industrial waste heat for use either as a sustainable heat supply or for electricity production reduces energy consumption and emissions and supports a circular economy model. Affordable solutions allow storage and heat recovery from low temperature sources. However, these are in short supply when it comes to the high temperatures associated with concentrated solar and energy-intensive industries. Funded by the European Research Council, the pioneering STOREHEAT project aims to bridge this gap by leveraging unique calcium carbide-based composites. Preliminary studies suggest that these materials can store much higher temperature heat, and that their production requires far less energy and relies on sustainable resources.
Objective
Although affordable solutions exist to store and recover heat from low temperature sources, the high temperature ones (> 550 °C) such as the concentrated solar and waste heat from high temperature energy intensive industries remain challenging since efficient and affordable storage materials are scarce. The waste heat from these industries is huge and corresponds to 16% (122 Terawatt hours) of the total heat consumption/year in Europe.
STOREHEAT targets the investigation of an outstanding and novel family of High Storage Capacity materials, namely Calcium Carbide-based Composites (3C), for High Temperature Heat Storage. 3C is produced at much lower temperature (1000 – 1200 °C) than the current solutions (1800-2500 °C) based on silicon carbide (SiC) ceramics from fossil source (coke) mainly. 3C is synthesized by carbonization of calcium rich biochar and have not yet been mentioned in the literature neither for high temperature storage nor the mechanism of their formation explored. Preliminary synthesis attempts showed a high temperature storage capacity for 3C of 20% higher than that of SiC while consuming much less energy and using sustainable resources for its production. The scientific breakthrough lies on the counter-intuitive and pioneering approach proposed to combine and stabilize the hierarchical carbon and metal species both from biochar to take advantage of their respective high thermal conductivity and heat capacity at high temperature. This seemingly winning combination, key for effective heat storage has never been done before. To achieve this objective, I propose an ambitious research approach combining in-situ and dynamic experimental methods and modelling to unlock the mechanisms governing the chemical phases assemblage and stabilization of 3C. The storage performance will be evaluated and optimized.
The findings will push a way beyond the frontier of knowledge and broaden research opportunities in scientific communities interested in energy storage.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcomposites
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryinorganic compounds
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryalkaline earth metals
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrymetalloids
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringceramics
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Keywords
- Materials for High temperature energy storage in form of heat
- Advanced carbon materials engineering
- Carbon-metal composites
- Hierarchical and tunable materials
- In-situ characterization of chemical phase and structure transformations
- Modelling
- Biomass
- Energy and environmental transitions
- Decarbonization of industry
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
91120 Palaiseau
France