The Specialized Group on Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis (GECAT) of the Royal Spanish Society of Chemistry and the Royal Spanish Society of Physics has awarded the prize for the best doctoral thesis in 2018 to Beatriz Sarrión Aceytuno of the Institute of Materials Science of Seville (ICMS).

The doctoral thesis is entitled “Thermochemical storage systems for concentrated solar energy” defended on November 9, 2018, obtaining the grade of Outstanding “Cum Laude” unanimously, and the title of Doctor from the University of Seville.

The Doctoral Thesis, directed by Drs. José Manuel Valverde Millán and Luis Allan Pérez Maqueda, focuses on the use of natural carbonates and CaO-based materials for energy storage in central tower concentrated solar power plants (CSP) through the process known as Calcium‐Looping (CaL). CSP technology with energy storage has great potential because storage makes it possible to generate electric current continuously and according to demand, which is its greatest advantage when compared to the intermittent nature of other types of renewable energy such as wind or solar photovoltaic.

The CaL process, based on the reversible calcination-carbonation reaction of CaCO3/CaO, was originally proposed in CO2 capture systems. The main novelty of this doctoral thesis lies in the proposal of using CaL for thermochemical storage of solar energy, paying special attention to establishing the optimal conditions of the process in order to achieve high multicyclic efficiency that favors the commercial development of this technology.