Akmal Irfan Majid

Akmal Irfan Majid completed his Master study in Mechanical Engineering from Universitas Gadjah Mada-Indonesia (UGM) in 2015 with the major of energy conversion and multiphase flow. He experienced as a Fachpraaktikant at the Experimental Thermal & Fluid Dynamics Dept. of Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Germany (2014) for his master thesis concerned ‘Dynamics of Taylor Bubble Flow in a Vertical Pipe’. Akmal also pursued a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from UGM with thesis of ‘Interfacial Analysis of Air-Water Slug Flow using Image Processing Technique'.

Prior to starting the Ph.D at TU/e, Akmal worked as a Researcher in the ‘Energy Conversion Laboratory’ of Dept. of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering and ‘Center for Energy Studies’ at the UGM, focused on gas-liquid flow visualization and experimental combustion studies, as well. As the important role of dense energy carrier in this energy transition era, he extends his multiphase flow background for the research of 'Electrochemical Reduction of Combusted Iron' as a part of metal fuel cycle. He joined the Power & Flow group as a Doctoral Candidate under supervision of Prof. Niels Deen and Dr. Yali Tang.

The high volumetric energy density and abundance features of iron are considered as the ideal candidate for the dense energy carrier. The CO₂ free and recyclable metal fuel cycle can be obtained for Iron (powder) where energy is generated by a ‘clean’ combustion process and the rust (iron oxide) can be reduced into pure iron by the ‘green’ reduction process.

Electrolysis is one of the promising techniques to extract iron. However, a lot of challenges related to enhancement in low process efficiency and chemical substances transport are still found. A new technique using the spinning disc electrolyzer is proposed to optimize the production process and directly harvest the iron powders. In Majid’s research, the phenomena associated with iron production inside the reactor such as hydrodynamics, chemical substance and iron transports, and particle interactions are studied using experimental and numerical works. A detailed reduction mechanism of the iron electrodeposition is also investigated in this study.