Research Projects
Current and Past Research Projects
About the project:
With progress and development of society, the necessity of a more affordable, reliable and sustainable energy is crucial to stability and prosperity of ever-growing population. Energy sector is one of the strongest reasons for global warming, which has reached the highest average annual concentration of CO2 emissions which is around 50% higher compared to the preindustrial revolution era. Furthermore, the future coal, oil and gas demands are projected to increase by 5% by the end of 2022.
In EU alone, 30% of all CO2 emissions stem from the energy sector. For this reason, fusion power is being researched and developed to obtain high amounts of stable and more green energy compared to conventionally fossil fuel-based processes. Materials, which are being tested for fusion reactor components, are mainly based on the previous selections designated for fission nuclear power. However, their implementation is not easily transmittable and has been proven to be considerably challenging. With recent research, it has been proven that some of these materials, which were suggested to have high corrosion and degradation resistance, actually change their microstructure during implantation and usage that consequentially alters the material properties and leads to material instability and deterioration. For this reason, there is a high interest towards research of new development and processing (such as heat treatment) of selected materials applicable for fusion.
The project conducts fundamental research on selected material and heat treatment, which is used as first wall of fusion reactor components, leading to significantly lower CO2 emissions and impact of energy sector on the global climate. The project tends to provide base understanding on how deep cryogenic treatment (DCT) improves materials’ properties for fusion applications through their microstructural tailoring. Focus is placed on the role of modified microstructure as well as nano-chemistry on the corrosion resistance, which is up to now only superficially explored. Due to the unique influence of DCT on microstructure, the process can provide a novel greener way of material treatment that is both highly effective as well as economically feasible.
Founded by Alexander von Humboldt PostDoc Fellowship 01/02/2023-31/08/2024.
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