Dr. Nikolaos Tzouganatos

• development of a risk-based maintenance strategy for the ewz hydropower plant portfolio. • prioritization of investments in the ewz hydropower plants. • assessment of different investment strategies for hydropower plants in terms of their economic viability using Monte Carlo simulations. • SCADA data analysis for the detection of wind turbine under-performance, the identification of potential operational issues, and the early detection of component failures across ewz's wind farm portfolio.

• responsible for the engineering design, development, and fabrication of a modular solar dish concentrator/reactor system for the production of solar fuels from H₂O and CO₂ based on ceria redox reactions. • created process flow diagrams and defined testing requirements for the process equipment. • experimentally investigated the thermal behavior and mechanical stability of test probes in order to optimize the engineering design and fabrication of optical components of the system.

• demonstrated an environmentally benign process for the recycling of zinc using concentrated solar energy. • designed, numerically modeled, and fabricated a novel solar reactor aiming to decrease heat losses, overcome existing technical hurdles, and promote industrialization of the solar reactor technology. • experimentally tested the reactor for its thermal behavior, mechanical stability, and chemical resistance in air at temperatures exceeding 1300⁰C.

• developed a heat and mass transfer model to numerically investigate the feasibility of a process for the solar-driven production of liquid zinc aiming to decrease the energy consumption of the process.

Master Thesis: "Distillation of Silicon via a Carbothermal Reduction of Silica using Concentrated Solar Energy as an alternative heat source" • experimentally investigated the feasibility of a solar-driven silicon production process aiming to reduce the CO2 emissions released conventionally. • experimentation at PSI's imaging and solar furnaces, chemical characterization, investigation of the reaction mechanism and the reaction kinetics of the carbothermal reduction of SiO2

• provided instructions to 3rd (final) year undergraduates and 1st year postgraduates in the course of “Energy Systems and Power Engineering”

• developed a numerical model describing the heat transfer in the cylinder of Wärtsilä engines, which was used by the development engineers to optimize the engine design. • reduced delivery time by initiating data exchange with the Engine Performance Team.

PhD Thesis: “Solar-driven Pyrometallurgical Extraction of Zinc via the Carbothermal Reduction of Primary and Secondary ZnO sources”

Focus: Concentrated Solar Energy, Solar Thermochemistry, Renewable Energy Sources, Heat Transfer, Fluid Dynamics, Chemical Engineering, Energy Economics Master Thesis: "Distillation of silicon via a carbothermal reduction of silica using concentrated solar energy as an alternative heat source"

Focus: Renewable Energy Sources, Energy Storage, Heat Transfer, Fluid Dynamics, Internal Combustion Engines, General Mechanical Engineering Master Thesis: "Energy storage by means of compressed air (CAES) and hydrogen for decentralized systems"