The seminar will take place at the Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles at ICMAB.

From the oil barrel to reactive metals: An approach to the energy transition

by Stefano Passerini, from Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU) (Germany) and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) (Germany)

Monday, 21 November 2022
3:00 PM
ICMAB-Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles

Abstract:

Our society is facing a millennial challenge to slow down global warming below 2 °C in the long term.[1] Ambitious policy frameworks and policy intentions are a must to achieve this target. In fact, analyzing the status quo, International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded that the related carbon dioxide tra- jectories are not compatible with the climate targets, even if current policy commitments and pledges by governments are implemented.[2,3] The challenging issues are the limited use of renewables, merely considered for power generation, but only marginally addressing other carbon-intensive industrial sectors (e.g., cement, steel, smelting), and the practical reduction of CO2 emissions from the transport sector.

Reactive metal-based storage systems are a new alternative to support the clean energy transition. Herein, the cases of Al and Na are presented, both preliminarily fulfilling the constraints regarding sustainability, but employing two rather different processes. Both, the steam combustion of molten Al for H₂ and heat production,[4,5] and a new rechargeable battery, which makes use of seawater and sodium as electrodes, show promising round-trip efficiencies.[6] The latter technology also allows CO₂-trapping, desalination, Na metal, and chlorine production. It is argued that further research efforts are needed to verify the sustainability and ability of reactive metal-based technologies to compete with other storage technologies.

References:

[1] Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Twenty-First Session, held in Paris from 30 November to 13 December 2015, FCCC/CP/2015/10/ Add.1, United Nations Framework on Climate Change, United Nations, New York 2016.
[2] International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2016, International Energy Agency, Paris 2016.
[3] International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2019, International Energy Agency, Paris 2019.
[4] H. Ersoy, M. Baumann, L. Barelli, A. Ottaviano, L. Trombetti, M. Weil, S. Passerini, Adv. Mater. Technol. 2022, 2101400.
[5] L. Barelli, M. Baumann, G. Bidini, P. A. Ottaviano, R. V. Schneider, S. Passerini, L. Trombetti, Energy Technol. 2020, 8, 2000233.
[6] Y. Kim, M. Kuenzel, D. Steinle, X. Dong, G.-T. Kim, A. Varzi, S. Passerini, Energy Environ. Sci., 2022, 15, 2610.

Bio:

Stefano Passerini is Professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology since January 1, 2014 and Director of the Helmholtz Institute Ulm since October 2018. His research focuses on the basic understanding and development of materials for high-energy batteries and supercapacitors, with the goal to create sustainable energy storage systems from environmentally friendly and available materials and processes.

He is an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of ionic liquids and the development of sodium-ion batteries. Co-author of more than 700 scientific papers (Scopus H-Index: 106; > 40,000 citations), a few book chapters and several international patents, he has been awarded in 2012 the Research Award of the Electrochemical Society Battery Division. Since 2015 he is acting as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Power Sources. He has been nominated Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry (2016) and the Electrochemical Society Inc (2020). Since 2019 he is a member of the Leopoldina German Academy of Science.

Host:

Hosted by Dino Tonti, SSC group, ICMAB-CSIC