About this role
Postdoc Bipolar Membrane Development for Acid-Base Flow Battery Systems (Delft, NL, 2628 CD) Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) Posted on Jul 15, 2026 Job description Energy storage is an indispensable factor for bridging the electricity consumption with the intermittent renewable energy supply. Electricity grids face significant challenges in balancing economic growth with sustainability targets. Rapid electrification across industrial, transport, commercial, and residential sectors strains existing grid infrastructure, leading to congestion and transmission bottlenecks. These issues limit the integration of renewable energy. Long-duration energy storage (LDES), that provide 8+ hours of storage, can balance intermittent production and demand, thereby stabilizing the grid, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and ensuring more effective use of renewable energy. TenneT expects 4.9 GW of large-scale battery storage is required in The Netherlands by 2030, while there was only 0.14 GW installed in 2023. Hence, a rapid scale-up of LDES is needed. In that light, we started a collaborative project, with universities (TU Delft, UTwente, TU/Eindhoven, HAN) and companies (AQUABATTERY, Elestor, Exergy Storage, RWE, Nobian), to develop batteries for long-duration energy storage. Specifically, this postdoc position focuses on acid-base flow batteries, and more specifically the stack engineering in this system. Acid-base flow batteries are based on dissociating water into acid and base during charging, using bipolar membranes, and recombining acid and base in this membrane to retrieve electrical energy. We're looking for an excellent postdoc, with strong membrane development skills, to study development of bipolar membranes for acid-base flow batteries. In close collaboration with researchers at TU/Eindhoven and AQUABATTERY, we'll develop new bipolar membranes with high water dissociation efficiency, low resistance, and high selectivity...