International Research Experiences for Undergraduates (Switzerland): Solar Thermal Production of Zinc from Zinc Oxide and Carbon (Solid)

0203061

Palumbo

This three-year award involves researchers and undergraduate engineering students in a multinational, interdisciplinary, high temperature, solar thermal chemistry project led by Robert D. Palumbo of Valparaiso University and Alexander Wokaun of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. During each of three summers, two Valparaiso students will spend 10 weeks at PSI with scientists and engineers from ETH, the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), the French National Center for Scientific Research, and industries, chemTEK in Germany and ScanArc in Sweden. The researchers participate in a European Union funded project called SOLZINC. The goals of the project are: (1) to develop technology for the long-term storage of solar energy in the form of chemical energy and (2) to develop means for reducing industrial CO2 using solar energy as the source of process heat for industrial production of Zn (Zinc). Students will participate in reactor design, experiments using a solar furnace, and interpretation of experimental data. Some student projects include mathematical modeling to predict the performance of a solar reactor effecting the ZnO (Zinc Oxide) carbothermic reaction; and studies of biomass as a potential carbon source for thermal reduction of ZnO.

The project takes advantage of complementary expertise of US, Swiss, Israeli, and European academic and industrial engineers and of excellent facilities at PSI, in particular, a high flux solar furnace that delivers 40kW of solar power. The project will be used to evaluate the potential of a solar thermal reactor for long-term storage of solar energy in the form of chemical energy and the potential of reducing CO2 emissions in the metals production industry by using a solar process. Students will be trained in international research and establish international connections for future work as researchers and engineers.