Thermal power plants amounts to nearly 70% of all generated electricity worldwide, but also accounts for about one third of the global carbon dioxide emissions. By finding improved high temperature materials, thermal power plants can run more effectively to a lower cost, both economically and environmentally.
Assistant Professor Fang Liu, at the Department of Applied Physics, investigates high temperature materials down to atomic level in order to unearth novel resources for more environmental friendly and still low-cost power plants.
“Fossil fuel thermal power plants have been unfortunately subjected to massive negative comprehension as non-environmental friendly power supply when it comes to media and society in general”, says Fang.
Although thermal power plants account for about one third of the global CO2 emissions, they also provide close to 70% of the worldwide electricity production.
“The demand on energy supplies is growing constantly. However, due to uneven distribution and fluctuation nature of renewable resources such as wind or solar power, thermal power plants stay as a part of the energy puzzle. We as a society should look at this as a comprehensive challenge to find more environmental friendly approaches such as biomass for sustainable energy supplies”, emphasizes Fang.
Optimal combination of properties
“In order to decrease the CO2 emissions for an environmental society during the next few decades, we need to boost the energy conversion efficiency through increasing operating steam temperature and pressure, in new power plants”, says Fang.
The efficiency of the power plants is however restricted by the availability of economically viable structural materials with good long-term corrosion and creep resistance against the increased temperature and pressure.
A good example of such materials is martensitic 9-12 % Cr steel – stainless steel consisting of 9-12 % chromium – which has all the critical properties (creep strength, corrosion resistance, thermal conductivity and thermal expansion) needed for thermal power plant applications.
“In addition, martensitic steel offers much cheaper high temperature materials compared to other resources such as austenitic steel that contains higher amount of nickel and chromium. Although austenitic steel has better mechanical properties it becomes less attractive due to its high price and poor thermal properties”, states Fang.
Observation of individual atoms
‘The ultimate goal of my research is to push the frontiers of materials science by revealing the physics underlying material related phenomena and establishing the correlations between processing, microstructure and properties”, says Fang.
She uses Atom Probe Tomography (APT) for studying the structure of high temperature materials. “It is one of the very few techniques that can provide the chemical information of sub-nanometer resolution, where I can actually “see" individual atoms in materials”, she says.
Previously, only metals could be analyzed by APT where recently, pulsed laser makes analyzing non-conductive materials possible. Thus APT opens up the door for analyzing a wide spectrum of materials from semiconductors and ceramics to biomaterials.
The challenge I like
As most of enthusiastic scientists, Fang enjoys working with her own hands in the lab. However, she unfortunately does not have enough time anymore to run experiments as much as she wants to.
“All the simple things have been already done, it is the challenge I like. Finding the best way to tackle a problem even if it requires spending lots of hours in the lab without results”, says Fang.
“As an optimist I see each failure as a way to learn in order to address the problem properly next time”, adds Fang with a laugh.
When it comes to teaching as a part of her professional day, she mainly enjoys the communication she has with the students, particularly during projects.
“I see teaching as a great opportunity to reflect on my own knowledge. I think it is an important challenge to be able to transfer my expertise to young students in the most comprehensive attitude”, says Fang.
Among all other things during her professional days, she appreciates specifically the time to read scientific journals, articles and latest news in her research field every morning as an opportunity to reflect on her knowledge.
Academic environment
The open discussions between not only her peers but also the research community at large and the opportunity to establish close contacts with experts in the field are only few of many reasons that make academia a perfect fit for her great ambitions.
“It is an open environment that provides researchers the chance to know specialists from various areas, which fosters creativity and new ideas. An example is writing applications, where I can be reasonably free to imagine and think of possible prospects and challenges by, indeed, keeping the balance between the fundamental and applied physics”, she says.
Fang thinks of collaboration as an essential part of the academic career while she mentions some of her local collaborations with the Competence Center for High Temperature Corrosion and professor Shu Min Wang, from the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience.
“Still it is very important for a scientist to keep contact with the real world through industrial collaborations”, mentions Fang with giving us examples of her industrial collaborations such as DONG Energy in Denmark, Siemens Industrial Turbo-machinery in Sweden, RWE Power and Saarschmiede GMBH Freiformschmiede, in Germany.
“Working hard, establishing new collaborations and keeping good relationships with all collaborators are the key factors to my success in academia”, sates Fang humbly.
Future challenges
“I think the challenges that we have to deal with as researchers are very closely related to the society”, says Fang. She adds “We as scientists, should remind ourselves that the challenge is not only in finding new sustainable energy resources, but also in the strategies behind consuming less energy such as making lighter and more energy efficient materials”.
“Fossil fuel thermal power plants have been unfortunately subjected to massive negative comprehension as non-environmental friendly power supply when it comes to media and society in general”, says Fang.
Although thermal power plants account for about one third of the global CO2 emissions, they also provide close to 70% of the worldwide electricity production.
“The demand on energy supplies is growing constantly. However, due to uneven distribution and fluctuation nature of renewable resources such as wind or solar power, thermal power plants stay as a part of the energy puzzle. We as a society should look at this as a comprehensive challenge to find more environmental friendly approaches such as biomass for sustainable energy supplies”, emphasizes Fang.
Optimal combination of properties
“In order to decrease the CO2 emissions for an environmental society during the next few decades, we need to boost the energy conversion efficiency through increasing operating steam temperature and pressure, in new power plants”, says Fang.
The efficiency of the power plants is however restricted by the availability of economically viable structural materials with good long-term corrosion and creep resistance against the increased temperature and pressure.
A good example of such materials is martensitic 9-12 % Cr steel – stainless steel consisting of 9-12 % chromium – which has all the critical properties (creep strength, corrosion resistance, thermal conductivity and thermal expansion) needed for thermal power plant applications.
“In addition, martensitic steel offers much cheaper high temperature materials compared to other resources such as austenitic steel that contains higher amount of nickel and chromium. Although austenitic steel has better mechanical properties it becomes less attractive due to its high price and poor thermal properties”, states Fang.
Observation of individual atoms
‘The ultimate goal of my research is to push the frontiers of materials science by revealing the physics underlying material related phenomena and establishing the correlations between processing, microstructure and properties”, says Fang.
She uses Atom Probe Tomography (APT) for studying the structure of high temperature materials. “It is one of the very few techniques that can provide the chemical information of sub-nanometer resolution, where I can actually “see" individual atoms in materials”, she says.
Previously, only metals could be analyzed by APT where recently, pulsed laser makes analyzing non-conductive materials possible. Thus APT opens up the door for analyzing a wide spectrum of materials from semiconductors and ceramics to biomaterials.
The challenge I like
As most of enthusiastic scientists, Fang enjoys working with her own hands in the lab. However, she unfortunately does not have enough time anymore to run experiments as much as she wants to.
“All the simple things have been already done, it is the challenge I like. Finding the best way to tackle a problem even if it requires spending lots of hours in the lab without results”, says Fang.
“As an optimist I see each failure as a way to learn in order to address the problem properly next time”, adds Fang with a laugh.
When it comes to teaching as a part of her professional day, she mainly enjoys the communication she has with the students, particularly during projects.
“I see teaching as a great opportunity to reflect on my own knowledge. I think it is an important challenge to be able to transfer my expertise to young students in the most comprehensive attitude”, says Fang.
Among all other things during her professional days, she appreciates specifically the time to read scientific journals, articles and latest news in her research field every morning as an opportunity to reflect on her knowledge.
Academic environment
The open discussions between not only her peers but also the research community at large and the opportunity to establish close contacts with experts in the field are only few of many reasons that make academia a perfect fit for her great ambitions.
“It is an open environment that provides researchers the chance to know specialists from various areas, which fosters creativity and new ideas. An example is writing applications, where I can be reasonably free to imagine and think of possible prospects and challenges by, indeed, keeping the balance between the fundamental and applied physics”, she says.
Fang thinks of collaboration as an essential part of the academic career while she mentions some of her local collaborations with the Competence Center for High Temperature Corrosion and professor Shu Min Wang, from the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience.
“Still it is very important for a scientist to keep contact with the real world through industrial collaborations”, mentions Fang with giving us examples of her industrial collaborations such as DONG Energy in Denmark, Siemens Industrial Turbo-machinery in Sweden, RWE Power and Saarschmiede GMBH Freiformschmiede, in Germany.
“Working hard, establishing new collaborations and keeping good relationships with all collaborators are the key factors to my success in academia”, sates Fang humbly.
Future challenges
“I think the challenges that we have to deal with as researchers are very closely related to the society”, says Fang. She adds “We as scientists, should remind ourselves that the challenge is not only in finding new sustainable energy resources, but also in the strategies behind consuming less energy such as making lighter and more energy efficient materials”.
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