National team:
- ILK Dresden
- Fraunhofer IEG
- DLR, Institute of Low-Carbon Industrial Processes
Research work related to drying and heat pumps:
ILK Dresden is an independent and non-profit research institute with longstanding experience in heat pump research for both buildings and industrial processes. ILK Dresden has performed various R&D projects in the field of industrial high temperature heat pumps and has manifold and extensive knowledge on industrial heat pump applications above 120°C also including the use of high temperature heat pump modules for commercial dryers.
Fraunhofer IEG acts as a think-tank for the energy transition and develop our ideas from sketch to implementation along the entire value chain of energy system transformation. With our partners from industry and the public sector, we identify projects with great relevance for climate protection, make real applications possible and shape the energy transition. With the know-how of our team, we support sustainable transformation locally, nationally, and internationally. Our employees combine the necessary expertise in the fields of analysis, operation, and planning of sector-coupled electricity, gas and heating grids, drilling and geotechnologies, energy and process engineering, energy economics, georesources, and geosciences, storage systems, and hydrogen infrastructures.
In our competence center high temperature heat pumps we are researching thermal energy systems both numerically and experimentally. Industrial high-temperature heat-pumps are the main focus alongside other thermal cycles. In four teams we are answering questions regarding fluid machinery and systems engineering, thermal energy engineering, electrical energy engineering and hydrogen process engineering. We are consulting the manufacturing industry and the heat network operators on the transformation towards carbon neutrality, and we are cooperating with industry to provide the necessary technologies. For that purpose we maintain large testing infrastructures.
The Institute of Low-Carbon Industrial Process at the DRL is augmenting the research portfolio by adding a new focal area of CO2 reduction for industrial processes. Thus, broadening the scope of topics and expertise relevant to the energy transition by addressing the specific requirements and research needs to decarbonize huge energy-intensive industrial sectors (power plants, steelmaking, cement industry, petrochemical industries, chemical industries, and primary aluminum production). In this respect, the institute consists of three departments to cross critical aspects of industrial decarbonization. The department of high-temperature heat pumps is developing and building prototype heat pumps that reach temperatures beyond 150°C and installed power in the MW order of magnitude. Two types of pilot plants, one Brayton and one Rankine cycle heat pump, are currently being built. These heat pump systems are expected to provide options for reducing the CO2 emissions from industrial processes and the third life of coal-fired power plants. The department of low carbon-reducing agents is focusing on decarbonizing process-related greenhouse gas emissions by adapting existing technologies and substituting the emission-causing raw materials. Its task is to study and do research on alternative production routes for the three largest emitting industries, steel, ammonia, and cement. Finally, the simulation and virtual design department have the mission to develop new software tools with the help of which virtual industrial processes can be created and scientifically investigated. This department supports the optimization of decarbonization strategies by providing detailed and site-specific models of industrial processes modified by substituting fossil emission sources with new sustainable technologies such as high-temperature heat pumps and low-carbon energy sources.
Links to institutes, research projects, etc.:
www.ilkdresden.de
www.ieg.fraunhofer.de
www.dlr.de/di
Main contacts:
ILK Dresden: Carsten Heinrich, Institut für Luft- und Kältetechnik gemeinnützige Gesellschaft mbH, Bereich Angewandte Energietechnik, email: Carsten.Heinrich@ilkdresden.de
IEG Fraunhofer, email: fabian.ahrendts@ieg.fraunhofer.de
DLR, Institute of Low-Carbon Industrial Processes: SeonTae Kim, German Aerospace Center,
email: seon.kim@dlr.de