You are cordially invited to attend the upcoming AIChE-Boston Monthly Meeting & Lab Tour at Exponent in Natick, Massachusetts on October 19th. 

Date & Time: Thursday, October 19, 2023, 5:30-8:15 p.m.  

Location: Exponent | 1075 Worcester Street | Natick, MA 01760 

Agenda: 

5:30-7:00 p.m.: Registration, networking, and lab tours

7:00-8:15 p.m.: Presentation and Q&A 

Topic: 
Energy Transition: Energy Storage & New Roles for Hydrogen - Opportunities for Chemical Engineers

Presented by Achim Wechsung, Ph.D., P.E., CFEI and Michael Orella, Ph.D.

Energy Storage
Climate change is motivating a great shift in how we generate, transport, store, and consume energy. This energy transition is a great opportunity for chemical engineers as it impacts many systems designed, maintained, or operated by chemical engineers.

In this talk, we will highlight two of these opportunities. First, we will discuss how electrification is driving the need to store electrical power. Chemical engineering principles of reaction engineering, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and mass transfer are paramount in designing electrochemical energy storage systems and safely managing their failure scenarios. We will focus on the engineering and scientific challenges underpinning safe management of thermal runaway in energy storage systems. As the regulatory landscape becomes more defined, Exponent has led efforts to gain insight into the fundamental processes that govern energetic failure of battery electrochemical energy storage.

Case Study
A case study of thermal management focusing primarily on the heat transfer and thermodynamics fundamentals that can be used to design safe and performant devices will be presented.

New Uses for Hydrogen
In the second segment, we will highlight opportunities for hydrogen in areas that may be harder to decarbonize by electrification. Hydrogen has been used industrially for decades, mainly in refineries, basic chemicals manufacturing, and metallurgy. However, as new users are looking at hydrogen, it is also essential to understand its unique physical and chemical properties and the impact on safety. For example, hydrogen has a very wide flammable range, a high burning velocity, and a low ignition energy. At the same time, hydrogen-specific regulations continue to evolve to meet the changing usage scenarios.

A Focus on Chemical Engineering Principles
As we will discuss in these talks, core chemical engineering principles can be applied to make the energy transition safer for everyone.