You clearly have a passion for the optimisation of renewable energy. Why choose solar for your research?
Having grown up in Shiraz just south of Iran, we experience sunny days throughout the year with good solar intensity. I became increasingly fascinated by how sun interacts with nature as well as its effects on human-modified ecosystems. I think my childhood and hometown have pushed me into the solar field.
Now that world leaders are finally recognising it as a problem that needs to be faced, how do you think such a momentous task of combating climate change should be approached?
The most important step for that would be training and teaching societies about how they could be effective. Combating climate change has to start with the individual. We should not wait for first-world countries to help developing countries or to wait for climate changes to occur. My philosophy is simple: respect nature. Think green and try to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Briefly describe your PhD research as you would to a non-engineer.
The sun’s energy is currently used as a power source via the photovoltaic (PV) effect or via Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). My PhD focuses on the latter conversion, because of the ability of CSPs to store energy and scale up renewable energy to useful levels. With CSP, the energy of the sun is transferred to a Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF). I work with a type of CSP plant called a linear Fresnel reflector (LFR). Recently, LFRs became popular in solar receiver studies due to newly discovered advantages and this PhD study focused on that.
In general, an LFR CSP plant is based on an array of linear mirrors that concentrate solar rays on a downward-facing fixed receiver that is covered with glass and contains pipe absorbers. These pipes contain a specific HTF, which is heated by the solar energy. The energy that is absorbed by the HTF is used in power generation. The aim of my research is to figure out how to harvest as much solar energy as possible at the lowest possible cost.
In the conceptual design phase of this study, a new approach is being developed to predict the harvesting of solar energy from LFR accurately and optimise it in order to lower the generated energy price. This would be the ultimate goal of this conceptual design phase study on CSPs.
The Green Talents competition seems to aim at networking all of its award recipients together. Did you meet any other interesting candidates? Describe some of their own ideas on combating climate change.
The Green Talents competition is an amazing opportunity to establish networks with distinguished German institutions in your field, although you can extend your network through other recipients. According to the official website of this competition in 2015, there were applicants in the fields of urban planning, biodiversity, renewable energy, resource management, and the socio-political implications of new technologies. The winners covered an impressively broad range of academic research with diverse achievements. In such a broad range of academic background, it is hard to find people with whom you can brainstorm your ideas. Therefore in my opinion this competition helps award recipients to network with German experts, especially during the two week stay that the recipients spend in Germany, where they meet German experts in individual meetings. BMBF also tries to extend the networking of recipients by inviting them to Germany for reunion conferences. Let’s see how it works out in the future.
Will you file a patent or join an environmental research agency now?
I am busy writing a research proposal for Franhoufer ISE (the biggest solar research institute in Europe). If it were granted, we would be able to develop a revolutionary idea in the application of solar energy in other industries and, if everything goes well, we might file a patent. With regard to future plans, I want to stick to solar and renewable energy.
It is not every day that we get to interview an Iranian PhD student. Did you come to UP as a foreign student?
I joined Tuks in June 2013 as a foreign student. After graduating in Iran in 2009, I joined the industry and worked as a consultant design engineer for a petrochemical plant, but working in [the] industry did not satisfy me and I wished to return to the academic environment where I could do research and challenge myself with new ideas. So I quit in 2013 and tried to find a PhD position in solar energy, which I found at UP. I also wish to acknowledge funding from the University of Pretoria, the South African National Research Foundation, and the Solar department of the South African Department of Trade and Industry. In addition, I want to thank my family, friends, and Prof. Ken Craig and Prof. Josua Meyer, my PhD supervisor and co-supervisor respectively, for their support.
Image provided.
