Leon Thijs is a Doctoral Candidate at the Power and Flow group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering under the supervision of full professor Philip de Goey and associate professor Jeroen van Oijen. He researches numerical techniques for the simulation of single metal particle combustion. Metal powders are very promising high-energy-density fuels that are entirely carbon-free and recyclable. The metal powders can be oxidized to metal oxides while producing heat. These metal oxides can be reduced back to metal powders with green electricity. This cyclic process of oxidation and reduction can be repeated over and over again.

Leon Thijs obtained his BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in 2017. He obtained his MSc double degree in Mechanical Engineering (Power & Flow group) and Applied Physics (Fluids & Flow group) in 2020. As part of the master's program, he did his internship at Canon Production Printing (former Océ), where he worked on the numerical modeling of ink drying in the nozzle. Afterward, he started his graduation project under the supervision of Hans Kuerten and Jos Zeegers. His master thesis is called “Honeycomb wake turbulence and particle dynamics in a magnetic density separation system”. Directly after graduation, Leon joined the Power and Flow group as a Doctoral Candidate. In this position, he is now working on model development of single metal particle combustion