PhD in Industrial Engineering

Industry is responsible for 15% of the EU’s emissions, while Energy-Intensive Industries (EIIs) make up more than half of the energy consumption of the EU industry. EIIs comprise sectors, such as aluminium, steel, cement, lime, chemicals, ceramics, glass, pulp and paper. The majority (66%) of industrial energy use is for process heating purposes (37% of which with a temperature below 200 °C), meaning that the sustainable supply of heat should be at the forefront of any decarbonization strategy for industry. The ZEnITh (Zero Emissions Industrial Technologies) project aims at developing a solution combining High Temperature Heat Pumps (HTHP), Latent Thermal Energy Storages (LTESs) and AI-based Industrial Energy Management System (EMS). To do so smart control systems for HTHP are needed to favour the integration into the industrial processes./nThe research group Flexible Heat Pumps and Cooling Systems (FHP&Cool, https://iiw.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/fhpcool) at KU Leuven, will be responsible for the predictive on-board control of the high temperature heat pump to support the process integration. FHP&Cool group, belonging to the Mechanical Engineering Department and located at the KU Leuven campus in Geel and linked to the research activities in Energyville, has a wide experience in Heat pump technology and system modelling and control.