Background and motivation

A key factor in achieving a climate-neutral Germany in 2050 is the provision of large amounts of renewable electricity and the development of low-emission solutions for mobility, industry, heat supply and energy storage. For this purpose, the offshore production of power-to-X products is being researched and advanced in the BMBF-funded hydrogen lead project "H2Mare".

The direct coupling of offshore wind turbines and suitable electrolysis processes with the power-to-X process steps for converting the green hydrogen produced, offer considerable potential for producing more easily transportable power-to-X products, such as liquefied methane, methanol, eFuels and ammonia. For this purpose, the individual process steps must be directly coupled to a wind turbine and operated under offshore conditions, as well as be able to follow the dynamics of renewable electrical energy generation by the wind turbine.

Against this background, the IMVT investigates the offshore integration and optimal system configuration of different power-to-X process chains and their dynamic behavior. For this purpose, in addition to the development and modeling of the respective system configurations, dynamic investigations of the process chains will be carried out.

Task overview

• In this work, energy system simulations for offshore production of green hydrogen and PtX products will be created and their dynamic behavior will be investigated:
• Literature research on simulation of energy systems, electrolysis technologies as well as dynamic replacement models.
• Development of an assessment methodology for dynamic PtX process chains
• Modeling of dynamic electrolysis models and derived substitute models using artificial intelligence
• Simulation, investigation and optimization of an offshore PtX energy system for the production of synthetic methanol, ammonia or eFuels

General conditions and qualification

• Students of chemical engineering / process engineering
• Knowledge in process modeling
• The thesis can be written in German as well as in English
• The results of the thesis will be presented within the institute seminar. Presentations at H2Mare project meetings are also possible.

Start date: immediately

Supervisor: Philipp Rentschler (philipp.rentschler@kit.edu)