Every three years, the International Symposium on Thermophysical Properties is organized in Boulder, Colorado. For our team, this is the central thermophysical properties conference. In 2024, 10 scientists of our team attended the conference.

Each year, the Ared Cezairiliyan Best Paper Award is awarded to the best paper in the International Journal of Thermophysics. This year, a paper authored by a team of scientists from the chair of thermodynamics of RUB and from the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the USA was selected for the award. The award ceremony took place at the International Symposium on Thermophysical Properties in Boulder, Colorado.

Within the scope of a colaboration with the Professorship Applied Thermodynamics at Chemnitz University of Technology, a feasibility study was performed for density measurement at low temperatures using an vibrating tube densimeter (VTD). The utilized VTD is specified by the manufacturer for temperatures of (263 to 473) K at pressures of up to 140 MPa. The conducted study demonstrates the operational functionality even at temperatures of 100 K. The results of the study, including calibration and validation measurements, have recently been published in the International Journal of Thermophysics.

The viscosity of pure hydrogen and a binary (hydrogen + methane) mixture was measured using a two-capillary viscometer, which was recently completed and commissioned at SINTEF Energy Research in Trondheim. The measurements were made possible as part of the HYDROGENi and HYSTORM projects and complement ongoing research work in the field of viscosity measurements on hydrogen-containing mixtures in the thermodynamic laboratory at RUB. The results are available open-access in the International Journal of Thermophysics.

In the transition to a carbon-neutral society, hydrogen is considered as one of the most promising energy carriers. However, hydrogen transportation and storage remain challenges. Hydrate formation with hydrogen is either a risk to be avoided during transportation, or an opportunity for cheap, reversible, and environmentally friendly energy storage. In cooperation with the czech CAS and TU Dresden, the theoretic framework for modeling thermodynamic properties of hydrogen hydrates formation has now been published.

As part of the SFB project Oxyflame, the mass transport of oxygen as the main component of an oxyfuel atmosphere in porous solid fuels from biomass was examined. The majority of the gas and fuel reaction during combustion takes place at the inner surface of the particles, and the diffusion of gases through the porous structure can be a limiting factor for the reaction rate. The occupation of the fuels inner surface wit reactive gases can be experimentally determined using adsorption kinetics and further described with a pore structure-dependent adsorption kinetics model. The results were published in Chemical Engineering Science.

If extremely low temperatures are required in technical processes, besides hydrogen, only noble gases can be employed as fluid refrigerants. Here, concepts for hydrogen liquefaction are based on mixtures of helium and neon for efficient pre-cooling of the hydrogen. Due to the limited experimental data available, current equations of state work purely predictively over a wide temperature range. In order to significantly improve the data situation, new high-precision densities of three binary helium and neon mixtures as well as the pure substances were measured using a low-temperature single-sinker densimeter and published open-access in the Cryogenics Journal.

On November 17, the renowned Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (NTNU) in Trondheim awarded an honorary doctorate to the Head of the Chair of Thermodynamics at Ruhr-Universität. This is the highest academic honor a university can bestow and is based on his significant contributions in the field of thermodynamic material data research. The Rectorate of NTNU particularly emphasizes Prof. Span's contributions to the development and introduction of sustainable energy technologies in the fields of carbon capture, transport and storage as well as the production and transport of hydrogen. Photo: © Thor Nielsen / NTNU