Solar Energy

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I’m an exchange student from Switzerland who is doing his Master Thesis here at SDSU in the Combustion and Solar Energy Laboratory. I finished my bachelor and most of my master at ETH Zürich in the Professorship of Renewable Energy Carriers.

My research project here is focused on experimental work. I’m evaluating the oxidation of carbon particles in air under different conditions. In order to do that we set up a tube furnace which enables us to heat an air stream with entrained particles to a temperature of 1100 °C. With different measurement devices we analyze the oxidation rate of the particles. The gathered data will later be used in the different CFD reactor models.

One part of my thesis also includes the study of dispersion of carbon black. Our carbon black particles have an original size of about 35 nm but agglomerate to bigger structures. For lab-scale and large-scale experiments a particle size of 200-400 nm is desired and we are currently evaluating a disperser that can achieve that.