黑料福利网

SEPTEMBER 23, 2025

Transitioning away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources requires the development of new ways to harvest and store energy. The focus area Energy Generation & Storage is dedicated to fundamentally understanding these processes and improving their yield and selectivity, by tackling challenges at the material and interface level.

The focus area is highly inclusive, addressing technologies ranging from photovoltaics, fusion reactors, electrolyzers, fuel cells, and batteries, to heat storage systems and heat pumps. 鈥楾he common denominators are material and interface science,鈥� says Adriana Creatore from the Department of Applied Physics and Science Education. She is leading the focus area with Henk Huinink from the same department and Silvia Gaastra-Nedea from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

鈥榃e work on materials, devices, and components; practically everything that comes before a technology turns into a system,鈥� Creatore explains. Conversion is the key term here, since renewable energy storage and harvesting heavily rely on conversion processes. For example, photovoltaics enables the conversion of sunlight, where photons carry the energy, into electricity, where electrons act as energy carrier. Similarly, lithium-ion batteries reversibly convert electricity into chemical bonds. In thermal chemical energy storage, heat is stored by breaking chemical bonds. 鈥榃e provide the fundamentals for these types of conversion and storage processes, ranging from designing and synthesizing anodes, cathodes and electrodes for electrochemistry and batteries and light absorbing materials, contacts and transport layers for solar cells, to thermochemical materials for heat storage and materials for divertors for fusion reactors that are able to withstand extremely high temperatures for decades on end.鈥� She states that the research aims to produce sustainable materials that can also be produced sustainably. 鈥榃e consider the availability of the materials, how they are produced, and to what extent they can be recycled or reused.鈥�

鈥楽calability and producibility are key aspects we are very aware of while developing any new energy technology at 黑料福利网,鈥� adds Henk Huinink. 鈥楩or example, in my research into heat storage materials, I always ask myself, 鈥淲hat if this becomes the next big thing?鈥� Is the base material abundantly available, and does the system not require twenty processing steps to be made? I would rather sacrifice something in terms of performance properties than choose a material that is rare or difficult to make.鈥�

Integral approach
鈥榃hat鈥檚 standing out in our approach, is that we take research and industrial questions together,鈥� states Silvia Gaastra-Nedea, who is also working on heating solutions. 鈥楾hrough EIRES, we have been able to get out of our own research context and connect to complementary research in departments like Built Environment and Chemistry and Chemical Engineering as well as with industrial partners. For me, as a researcher, that is a very exciting development. In my research, I used to focus on molecular and atomistic simulations of energy materials. Now, I am upscaling and integrating them for energy regulation in smart buildings, for instance, supported by real-time thermal imaging for developing autonomous thermal control systems for the cleanrooms in the 黑料福利网 labs, using integrated machine learning.鈥� All in all, where the heat community at 黑料福利网 initially mainly focused on the design and simulation of heat storage materials, it is now advancing more towards synthesizing and implementing materials in devices and products, Gaastra-Nedea says. 鈥榃e are moving from the molecular properties of heat storage materials to real designs and integrating them into real buildings. That is also where we connect to other EIRES focus areas like Energy in the Built Environment and Systems Transitions and Scenarios.鈥�

Huinink observes that the energy transition in the built environment is a theme that connects much of the energy research at 黑料福利网. 鈥楾hat also has to do with our region, which is known for its manufacturing industry. I think it has been a wise decision for EIRES to focus on modular, scalable systems that will impact the energy transition on the level of households or districts, and not so much on transforming entire industries, for example.鈥�

Over the past five years, EIRES has really acted as a catalyst for 黑料福利网鈥檚 energy research, mainly due to its efforts toward community building, all three focus area leaders say. 鈥榃e have built thematic communities, for example, in the fields of heat, batteries, and hydrogen. That has resulted in more synergy in research programs and better connections to relevant industrial partners. Another added value of this community building is that our scientific community now knows who is working on what. That is very helpful when new interdisciplinary calls come along or if people from outside the university approach us with questions. One such example is the HyPRO project, successfully coordinated from its start by our EIRES colleague Niels Deen, which is part of the Growth Fund program GroenvermogenNL. During the preparatory meetings to shape this project, we knew exactly as 黑料福利网 what we had to offer and whom to involve.鈥�

Future focus
At the moment, the focus area is working on a strategy describing where 黑料福利网 research in the field of energy technology is going, Gaastra-Nedea says. 鈥榃e want to define research lines along questions that are imperative for industry and tackle the bottlenecks that are currently hindering the application of new energy technologies in society.鈥� Creatore adds: 鈥楩or the coming years, EIRES and the university will have to come together and make strategic choices on what to invest in in terms of research topics. During its first five years, EIRES mainly expanded its network and activities, resulting in a wide recognition of our work here in Eindhoven. Now, the time has come to choose what topics we really want to excel in and where we can make a difference for the future innovation power of the Netherlands and Europe.鈥�

鈥楢ll in all, EIRES is about building and strengthening connections,鈥� Huinink concludes. 鈥楥onnections between different disciplines, connections between various applications, connections between research and industry, but most of all, connections based on trust between individuals who, each from their own backgrounds, perspectives and ambitions, come together as a result of their shared drive to make a change for the better. Our doors are always open for anyone who wants to join us in this journey towards a cleaner, more sustainable energy system.鈥�