Chemical Engineering and Materials Science News
Chemical engineer graduate offers alternative energy future.
Posted on: October 15, 2009
The geothermal power industry is rich with complexity and loaded with chemical engineering problems that have yet to be solved. From theoretical modeling of reactive, multi-component and multi-phase geothermal mixtures to specialized high-temperature instrumentation, there is plenty of work to be done.
The company Steve works for now, Thermochem, focuses mainly on the fabrication and use of unique instruments, particularly for tracer injection and sampling. Tracers can be used in a variety of ways to extract information about geothermal power plants, such as the liquid and vapor flow rates in two-phase mixtures, and the residence times of fluids in underground reservoirs. The residence time of a fluid flowing through a reservoir is critical because it must be quick enough to supply turbines, but slow enough to maximize heat transfer from rocks.
The most cutting-edge research Thermochem is working on right now involves the use of instrumentation for downhole enthalpy determination. In other words, it would be very useful to know not just the total enthalpy coming from the top of a geothermal well, but the enthalpy contributions from individual fractures in a geothermal reservoir. Therefore instrumentation has to be commercialized to determine enthalpy profiles from 0 m to 2000 m underground. This allows for better understanding and design of engineering reservoirs.
If you are interested to learn more about Thermochem you can visit their website at http://www.thermochem.com.