PhD on Caprock Integrity During Temporary Hydrogen Storage in Porous Reservoirs

Are you thrilled to dive deep into the potential of sustainable energy storage solutions and work closely with industry leaders? This position offers you the chance to explore your passion for renewable energy solutions, and boost your career with high-impact research in a field that is rapidly growing.

Your job
The Department of Earth Sciences currently seeks a highly-motivated and ambitious candidate for a PhD position at its High Pressure and Temperature Laboratory (HPT), run by the Experimental Rock Deformation group.

As society is trying to move towards a clean, low-carbon energy system, hydrogen is expected to play an important role, as it is a versatile energy carrier. Green hydrogen, produced from renewable electricity like wind and solar power, can be used as a fuel to (re)generate electricity and/or heat, or serve as feedstock for the chemical industry. However, wind and solar power are of an intermittent nature, meaning that large-scale storage of hydrogen fuel is required to balance seasonal variations in energy supply and demand, as well as to provide strategic energy reserves. Large quantities of hydrogen can be stored in the subsurface, for example in salt caverns or depleted oil/gas reservoirs. While temporary (days-weeks) salt cavern storage is considered to be mature enough to be applied, seasonal storage of pure hydrogen in porous sedimentary reservoirs is not yet sufficiently proven. This PhD project is part of the HyTROS programme (WP2) funded by GroenvermogenNL, a Dutch programme aimed at accelerating the green hydrogen market.

Within the HyTROS programme, you will independently be conducting and publishing your research. Through regular stakeholder meetings, you will also be presenting your findings to the broader HyTROS consortium, which is a public-private collaboration between 11 universities, 2 research institutes, 2 academia of applied sciences and 19 industrial partners.

Safe and efficient underground hydrogen storage in porous reservoirs is partly determined by maintaining integrity of the sealing caprock formation. Thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical changes in the caprock may lead to the creation of leakage pathways and/or movement along (pre-existing) fractures and faults. Many potential Dutch and European storage reservoirs are overlain by clay-rich formations. One of the key mechanisms that may occur within clay-rich caprock is the sorption of hydrogen to the clay-matrix. This sorption may lead to the development of swelling stresses and strains, which could impact potential leakage pathways in intact caprock or along pre-existing faults. In addition, direct pressure changes or thermal stresses could cause fault reactivation.

In this PhD project, you will be performing rock mechanical experiments to assess and quantify the stress-strain-sorption behaviour of clay-rich caprock in the presence of hydrogen. This will form the basis to identify grain-scale mechanisms that may impact the transport properties and frictional behaviour of clay-rich caprock during cyclic hydrogen pressure changes. Building on existing microphysical theory, you will cast your results in the form of constitutive relations, which can be used in numerical simulations performed by other partners in the HyTROS consortium. Throughout the project, you will regularly interact with the other consortium partners and present your results to a broader audience.

A personalised training programme will be set up, reflecting your training needs and career objectives. About 20% of your time will be dedicated to this training component, which includes training on the job in assisting in the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes of the department at Utrecht University.

Requirements:

This position is the right fit for you, if:

• you hold a Master’s degree in geosciences, physics, or material science;
• you have good quantitative and programming skills, ultimately obtained before the start of the position;
• you have excellent communication skills (written and spoken English at least at C1 level) and interpersonal skills;
• ideally, you have experience in Earth Materials research, such as in rock mechanics or rock physics.

In return, you will be part of a diverse, international team in an inspiring environment.

If you already have a PhD degree, unfortunately, we cannot consider you for this position.

Salary Benefits:

We offer:

• a position for one year, with an extension to a total of four years upon a successful assessment in the first year, and with the specific intent that it results in a doctorate within this period;
• a working week of 36 hours and a gross monthly salary between € 2.770,- and € 3.539,- in the case of full-time employment (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University has a number of schemes and facilities of its own for employees. This includes schemes facilitating professional development, leave schemes and schemes for sports and cultural activities, as well as discounts on software and other IT products. We also offer access to additional employee benefits through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage our employees to continue to invest in their growth. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

36 - 40 hours per week

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