Education
- Ph.D.,听Mechanical Engineering, ETH Zurich听
- M.Sc.,听Mechanical Engineering, ETH Zurich
- B.Sc.,听Mechanical Engineering, ETH Zurich
During his studies at the Professorship in Renewable Energy Carriers at ETH Zurich Illias acquired a solid background in the fields of heat transfer, energy technologies, and processes, and a good understanding of a broad range of techniques, tools, and equipment pertinent to solar engineering. His expertise is applying fundamental thermodynamics, fluid dynamics and chemical kinetics to renewable energy conversion with a focus on solarthermal energy. Experiences include development and testing of high-temperature solar receivers and thermochemical reactors for high-flux solar simulator and power tower applications, thermochemical and kinetic analyses as well as finite volume, finite element and Monte Carlo ray-tracing techniques. Currently Illias is working on a novel hybrid solar/electric reactor operating at reduced pressure for producing magnesium via a caborthermal reduction process. Key R&D efforts are determining the feasibility of heating the graphite electrodes using concentrated sunlight in addition to direct electrical resistance as well as the efficient collection of magnesium.