Brit Thomas Morgan works with Magnum-PSI, which is the only setup in the world that can mimic the ITER exhaust being exposed to hot particles experimentally. A plasma is directed by magnetic fields to a target. Magnum-PSI is fifteen meters in length and the lab it is located at has five-centimeter thick iron walls to keep the magnetic field inside. “One of the great challenges for ITER will be finding a material that can withstand the electricity coming from the blazing hot particles from the plasma”, says Morgan. “The heat flux, as it is called, is in the dozens Megawatts per square meter, comparable to that of the sun. We use the magnetic fields to guide the plasma and keep it warm, and so we create conditions that are similar to those in ITER.”

Whereas in Nieuwegein they worked with copper coils, Eindhoven will have a superconducting magnet at its disposal, says Morgan. The magnet enables DIFFER to expose materials to the plasma pretty much continuously. “So far, we have had to work with pulses lasting only a few seconds lest the coils get too hot. Soon, that will be a thing of the past and that will bring us closer to the actual conditions in ITER, which will be running for six to seven minutes on end.” Morgan and his colleagues plan to study how materials react to being exposed to extreme plasma conditions, but they also intend to find out if perhaps the plasma flow can be cooled by injecting a cold gas. The new building will also feature an ion beam facility for in situ material research, a unique extra for both the PSI lab and the Solar Fuels group.

Morgan’s group has been working in close collaboration with TU/e for years, both with Professor Niek Lopes-Cardozo’s Fusion group and the interdisciplinary master track Science and Technology of Nuclear Fusion. On top of that, DIFFER and TU/e appointed six common PhD candidates last year, several of whom are supervised by Morgan himself. “It has become much more convenient to supervise those candidates. If we want to meet, we just walk across campus.”

Anja Bieberle from Germany is employed by DIFFER, but has been working at the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS) at TU/e for a year now. At ICMS, she works with a small-scale research setup for photoelectronic experiments. She searches for materials (particularly metal oxides) that, in thin layers, might function as electrodes in fuel-producing photoelectrochemical cells. Sunlight splits water in these cells into hydrogen and oxygen. Then, the hydrogen can be combined with carbon extracted from CO2 to form liquid fuel, she explains. First, however, the first essential step must be perfected. “We have to be much more efficient. We all agree the right materials have not been discovered yet.”

Bieberle has to compete with methods that generate electricity in standard solar cells first, which is then used for chemical conversions to produce fuel – a process that DIFFER is researching as well. She also stresses that electrolysis devices (that can split water) have been around for a while already. “But that requires two steps. We want to cover the entire process at once.”

During her time at TU/e, Bieberle has connected with groups of various departments. Not only did she use the facilities at NanoLab@TU/e, but she also worked at Bert Koopmans’ group Physics of Nanostrcutures, and frequented the labs of professors René Janssen (Macromolecular and Organic Chemistry) and Emiel Hensen (Molecular Catalysis) to create and study thin layers. She is now planning to collaborate with the mechanical engineers of  Control Systems Technology to develop simulations to optimize her electrochemical system.

A joint project within DIFFER is at hand, too. “Materials that have been exposed to the plasma from the Magnum-PSI turn out to have a nanostructure that might just be suitable for use in electrodes for electrochemical processes. We are working on the transfer of that effect to thin layers as we speak.”