DLR-DAAD Postdoctoral Fellowship No. 613: Advanced Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy for Alkaline Electrolyzer Diagnostics

Enter the fascinating world of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and help shape the future through research and innovation! We offer an exciting and inspiring working environment driven by the expertise and curiosity of our 11,000 employees from 100 nations and our unique infrastructure. Together, we develop sustainable technologies and thus contribute to finding solutions to global challenges. Would you like to join us in addressing this major future challenge? Then this is your place!

Our Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics in Stuttgart offers a

DLR-DAAD Postdoctoral Fellowship No. 613: Advanced Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy for Alkaline Electrolyzer Diagnostics

What to expect:

Carbon dioxide emissions reduction become increasingly urgent for climate change mitigation. The main key to address this challenge is to use renewable energy sources particularly in the concept of renewable integrations in energy, mobility systems, and industry with Power-to-X solutions using green hydrogen. Germany has set out to become a global leader in the associated hydrogen technologies, and this is due in large part to Germany’s ambitious energy transition targets. Alkaline water electrolyser (AWE) is one of the most mature technologies but has still challenges of low current densities and part load capabilities, which need
to be addressed. In addition, the investigation of long-term durability of AEW to gain knowledge about the service life of the system under different processing conditions and operating modes are particularly important.

In the system point of view, DLR is seeking a strategic positioning towards improving the AWE performance and durability using the optimization of processing conditions under different operating modes. This required a detailed and extensive trace and analysis of system response under different operation conditions. In this regard, electrochemical Impedance spectroscopy (EIS), in combination with performance and durability tests, will provide useful information to quantify the impact of the different operation conditions on the AWE efficiency and stability characteristics.There is an opening for a post-doctoral fellow to work in the area of AWE
to operate the system and analyses the system response under different operation conditions using different analysis methods, such as I-V polarization curves, accelerated life tests (ALT) and accelerated stress tests (AST), and etc. The post-doctoral fellow, runs electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) extensively as a diagnostic tool and analyses it using mathematical circuit fitting in combination with the aforementioned techniques to quantify the effect of different operation
conditions on the performance and durability of AWE reactor.

What we expect from you:

What we offer:

DLR stands for diversity, appreciation and equality for all people. We promote independent work and the individual development of our employees both personally and professionally. To this end, we offer numerous training and development opportunities. Equal opportunities are of particular importance to us, which is why we want to increase the proportion of women in science and management in particular. Applicants with severe disabilities will be given preference if they are qualified.

Further information:

Starting date: As soon as possible
Duration of contract: initially for 12 months with a possible extension of one further year
Type of employment: Full-time

Contact:
Fatemeh Razmjooei (Fatemeh.Razmjooei@dlr.de)