Careers

Open PhD position

Prof. Elisabet Mas de les Valls from CREMIT research group at the CER-H2 is looking for a highly motivated PhD candidate to apply for a FI-STEP call and/or other PhD grants.

Aim:

When green hydrogen is produced using surplus energy through electrolyzers, the input voltage to the electrolyzer fluctuates significantly throughout the day. These fluctuations increase the thermal demands for warming up the electrolyzer, reducing both the plant’s efficiency and the electrolyzer’s durability. To address this, a coherent thermal management strategy is essential.

This PhD thesis will focus on optimizing a CFD tool based on the OpenFOAM toolkit to support the design and validation of coherent thermal management (CTM) strategies for a PEM electrolyzer stack.

Workplan:

1. State of Art in numerical modeling of water PEM electrolysis.

2. Reduction of simulation time for the openfuelCell algorithm (within OpenFOAM toolkit), designed to simulate a single-cell PEM electrolyzer.

3. Development of a numerical strategy for modelling a small electrolyzer stack.

4. Validation of the code using available experimental data.

5. Design and numerical testing of various CTM strategies to minimize overall thermal requirements.

6. Experimental validation of the CTM strategies.

Please send your CV to elisabet.masdelesvalls@upc.edu