THe HZDR ReSearch MagaZINe // ISSU e 02.2013 hzdr.de valuable resources "It Is about actIvely maIntaInIng our expertIse" Interview with Sören Kliem, Head Reactor Safety HZDR HIgH-precIsIon bullets Highly charged particles produce tiny hillocks or holes in the nanometer range new abode for excellence In researcH Festive inauguration of the National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology - OncoRay discovered 02 .13 Editorial COVeR IMAGE: Solar thermal power plants like this one with 3,200 parabolic trough collectors, owned and operated by Spanish global leader abengoa Solar and located near gila Bend, USa, take the heat energy from sunlight and convert it to electricity using relatively simple technical means. On pages 4 through 8 of this issue, you’ll read about different research projects HZDR scientists are currently working on in an effort to optimize solar thermal facility efficiency. Photo: abengoa Solar, S.a. Technology (HIF). We will introduce you to one of the HIF’s projects on helicopter based remote sensing and the project’s coordinator, Richard gloaguen, in this issue of discovered. No fewer than three stories are dealing with applied research on solar facilities. However, without long-term basic research, the topics we’re presenting to you in this issue, would have been all but impossible. This also goes for projects involving optimization of industrial processes and products. Materials researcher Sibylle gemming draws on the ion beam center’s repertoire and long-standing know-how to modify materials for use in combustion engines so as to minimize friction while optimizing energy efficiency. To take another example: In the chemical industry, large containers are often used, inside of which certain chemical reactions take place. These cannot simply be scaled from test tube to chemical reactor and they don’t readily lend themselves to direct observation or measurement. Process engineer Markus Schubert is eager to better understand these complex reaction sequences and DEAR READER, contribute to saving resources on an industrial scale. To allow them to chart ever new territory using highly which resource is most important to you? Is it spare time, sophisticated experimental protocols, researchers themselves personal skills, money? For some, it’s natural resources – are often times using up costly and scarce resources. as like a landscape that hasn’t been tampered with or the sea such, the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the with its plethora of living things – that hold great value. as HZDR recently faced a drastic shortage when the noble gas soon as resources become an object of research, scientists helium was running low. In an interview, physicist Thomas begin to focus intensively on them, often over many years. Herrmannsdörfer talks about the steps his institute took in They search for new approaches to improving availability response to this shortage. of these resources or optimizing efficiency during their use. Take renewable energies, for instance: today, sunlight, expert knowledge has become a vital resource in many areas, wind, and water are all wonderful suppliers of vast amounts from research to industry, even politics and society. Our of electricity, yet we are still a far cry from having created scientists are using their own energies for the generation suitable means of temporarily storing this electricity and and dissemination of knowledge. each new research finding from the desired yield. In addition, many industrial processes thus becomes a building block in the construction of a most hold tremendous hidden potential. Here, research can help immense knowledge and resource library our prosperity is optimize and thereby save important resources like time, based on in no small part. energy, and cost. Wishing you an enlightening read, Over the last few years, the HZDR has substantially increased research in the areas of energy and resources, for example, Christine Bohnet through its new Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource HZDR Department of Communications and Media Relations WWW.Hzdr.dE // the hZDR ReSeaRch MagaZine contentS ContEnts FOCUS Valuable Resources 04 Simulated flows 06 Harvesting sunlight 09 Waste that is brimming with energy 12 From the "test tube" to the chemical reactor 14 New coating concepts to offset friction 17 Scarce, scarcer, Helium 19 Ore mountains 22 "It is about actively maintaining our expertise" ReSEARCH 24 Of mice and men: Leipzig researchers investigate radiation exposure in diagnostics 26 Magnetic resonance of atomic nuclei 28 High-precision bullets 31 Magnetic vortices in 3D PORTRaIT 34 From early detection to the fight against diseased cells 36 A revolution for plasma simulations 37 Clues in stone 38 A new institute director at HZDR PaNORaMa – HZDR NeWS 39 Bratislava Dresden Bratislava 39 The search is on for junior scientists 40 New abode for excellence in research 42 Congress magnet Dresden 42 Calendar of events 02 43 Imprint 03 WWW.hZDR.De discovered 02 .13 FOCUS // experts in reactor safety at HZDR are researching how to make solar power plants more efficient. WITHOUT aNY LOSSeS: at the DUKe test facility, steam is generated directly inside the parabolic troughs’ tubes for subsequent power production. Photo: DLR simulAted flows _TeXT . Roland Knauer as usual, the devil is in the details. For the energy turnaround, For a young engineer, working on a future technology right scientists and politicians have committed to solar power off in your dissertation is a dream job, of course. even if the plants, which use rays focused from the sun to generate task is considerably more complicated than it appears at steam, and therefore operate just like coal-fired or nuclear- first glance. This is because the absorbing tube is no drinking powered turbines and generators. The electricity produced straw – it has an interior diameter of five centimeters (two in this way is largely carbon-neutral because the steam is inches) and is made up of different segments, referred to as generated by solar power instead of fossil fuels. The german collectors, that are about a kilometer long in total. While quite aerospace Center (DLR) is researching a promising variant to ordinary water flows through this long component, the water this technology close to the Spanish city of almeria. Concave is subjected to extreme conditions compared to usual ones mirrors there concentrate the sun’s rays onto long tubes in found otherwise on earth. which this concentrated energy converts water directly into steam. In principle, the physics is very simple. Looked at in detail, however, the flow of this mixture of water and steam Instabilities in the tube contained in the absorber tube can be quite unstable. Since these instabilities in two-phase flows can have an impact on even right at the inlet of this installation, the water can be the cooling system and thereby place greater demands on about 260 degree C (500 degree F). In order for it to remain the materials, engineers would naturally like to avoid them. in liquid state, the pressure in the tube is eighty times higher and best right from the start. The doctoral dissertation by than air pressure at sea level. Over the first hundred or so alexander Hoffmann at HZDR should help with exactly this meters of tubing, the focused solar radiation increasingly problem. heats up the water until it begins to turn to steam. at that point, even the high pressure is no longer sufficient to prevent WWW.Hzdr.dE // The hZDR ReSearch MagaZine FOCUS a DIFFeReNT KIND OF POWeR PLaNT: Parabolic trough power plants use focusing mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto an absorber tube. The heat energy that is captured within the tube is then used to produce steam to power a turbine. Photo: DLR the transition from liquid to vapor. However, this does not anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit gRS (association of Plant happen all at once, but gradually instead. Over a stretch of and Reactor Safety) in garching, near Munich, germany, has more than half a kilometer (> 500 yards), the focused solar already developed and successfully used simulation software radiation adds energy to the liquid that no longer increases for an entirely unrelated, but very similar problem. Two- its temperature, but instead transforms the liquid increasingly phase flows of steam and water can circulate, namely, in the into steam. Only after about three-quarters of a kilometer has cooling circuits of a nuclear power plant. HZDR engineers the water been completely converted to steam. The sun's rays rely on this aTHLeT software from gRS. They are very familiar further heat this steam over the remaining about 200 meters. with the simulation program as well as the flow behavior in The higher the temperature becomes, the more efficiently the nuclear power plants. alexander Hoffmann based his research turbines operate and the higher the effectiveness and thus precisely on this transfer of know-how. the yield of electricity. In applying the software, he does not want to find out The devil is in the intervening half kilometer, where just whether there are as-yet unobserved instabilities. He increasingly more steam is developed in the water-steam mix. primarily would like to investigate under what conditions "Instabilities can arise due this two-phase flow for various reliable operation is feasible. Furthermore, one could also use reasons," explains alexander Hoffmann. In the simplest case, the software for improved control over the entire solar power they occur when the sun penetrates the cloud cover again plant. Using this knowledge, which researchers at DLR will after a period of time. More focused solar energy reaches also in part be testing in practical experiments, the parabolic the tubing then, which vaporizes more water, and thereby trough power plants should be able to be operated not just shortens the stretch over which the water/steam mixture better, but also more economically.