The professor from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Minerva Díaz Heras, has received the ‘First Young Scientist Award’ from the ‘Inpath-TES’ consortium. This is an international award for international researchers who have defended their doctoral thesis between 2020 and 2023, and are conducting their research in the field of Thermal Energy Storage
Minerva Díaz defended her thesis in 2021, focused on the development and study of new granular materials for improving efficiency in the third generation of solar thermal power plants, which aim to increase the operating temperature of the system, thereby increasing its efficiency.
Current plants, which use molten salts as a working fluid, have their maximum operating temperature limited, as she points out. The use of solid granular materials allows temperatures close to 1000 degrees Celsius to be reached.
Minerva has also studied various technological solutions to integrate these solid particles into a solar thermal power plant, using fluidization technology.
The Inpath-TES consortium is made up of about twenty European institutions, with the main research groups in energy storage throughout Europe, who are the ones who have evaluated the candidates. The award was presented on June 7 at the closing ceremony of the main international congress on energy storage: Enerstock.
UCLM Communication Office.
Albacete, June 17, 2024
Other links to the news: