Column by Tejs Vegge, Professor and Head of section at DTU Energy and lead on the CAPeX centre. Published in Energy Supply 1.3.2023.
Power-to-X is the key to unlock the tremendous potential of green electricity. With the establishment of the energy islands, it’s essential to focus on how we can best use the power; in trucks, ferries, planes, the chemical industry and many other places where much of our CO2 emissions stem from.
That’s why DTU, in collaboration with Aalborg University and three national and three international universities, has established the pioneering centre CAPeX with support from five Danish foundations. CAPeX brings together leading experts in Power-to-X from both Denmark and abroad. The center will power the invention of new and more efficient and sustainable materials for use in Power-to-X plants, which will be crucial for integrating the green power from the coming energy islands as well as existing wind turbines and solar parks into society.
It is often overlooked how far we are from having the materials and technologies that can be scaled to solve the challenges on a global scale. Many of the best materials used in electrolysis plants today are based on platinum metals, which do not exist in nearly the quantities needed. Materials such as iridium, ruthenium and platinum are not scalable to the global challenges we face in the green transition, so our aim is to develop more sustainable and scalable materials. There’s no use in creating the world's best Power-to-X solutions if they cannot be scaled. If you look at the materials and technologies for the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals that we are working on now, they need to be scaled by a factor of 1000 to have a global impact. That requires researchers who can develop new and more efficient and durable catalysts, but also people in the industry who can produce them faster, cheaper, and on a completely different scale than we do today.
Important to think globally
Even if Denmark solved all our problems locally and expanded the production of the green electricity we consume, that’s only a tiny part of the challenge we are facing on a global level. It’s a massive task that exceeds what a single researcher, university or even country can solve. So it’s necessary to bring together the leading experts worldwide.
That’s why CAPeX has a close collaboration with Stanford University, the University of Toronto and Utrecht University, as this can help us really boost the development. We can utilize each other's infrastructure and unique skills in entirely new ways. For instance, some of our talented PhDs and postdocs can create software and algorithms based on artificial intelligence that can control a synthesis robot located in another lab or country that can make and characterize new materials, while a group from a third country or lab can analyze the data and come up with new predictions which can be produced in a fourth location using a different method. This means that we suddenly have a global lab and a myriad of techniques and equipment at our disposal, which don’t exist in any lab in the world.
No time to wait
If we are to achieve our 2030 goal of reducing CO2 emissions, we don’t have the time to spend 20 years developing new materials for the green transition. Today, traditional material development has to go through many time-consuming process steps, from one group discovering a new material in the lab to another group testing it, while a third group has to find out if it can be scaled up, and a fourth group tests the durability of the systems. Occasionally, something goes wrong along the way, which requires you to start over, so the process can be very slow. We don't have time to wait for that.That’s why we will develop a new powerful material acceleration platform that combines computer simulations, experiments and synthesis robots in a closed loop using artificial intelligence. In addition, we are making digital twins of the most critical parts of the process, which are a virtual simulation of the processes and materials to be tested and developed. By using computer-based simulations, we can use less time and resources to set up tests and thus describe processes that would otherwise take a long time to do and test many different types of materials. We expect to develop new materials 5 to 10 times faster this way. That is also necessary if the Power-to-X technologies are to mature enough to make efficient use of the green power we have available in the near future.
Future experts must be trained
Denmark is well positioned within the field of Power-to-X, but it is vital that we don’t stagnate and that makes education crucial. One of the most important tasks for CAPeX is to train at least 100 PhDs and postdocs during the 13-year lifespan of the centre. It is these "Power-to-Xperts" who will carry forward the research, but also the industrial development within the new Power-to-X technologies. Some of the digital and trans-disciplinary skills that will be used in the next 10-20 years must be generated in a different way than we do today. So it’s a priority that our PhDs and postdocs have long-term stays at one of the international partner universities so they can be part of the daily routine and be well-integrated into their research environment. It also allows young researchers to take their ideas to a level where they can be accelerated by the best experts and the best infrastructure, both nationally and internationally, much faster than can otherwise be done.
Power-to-X requires an entirely new way of thinking. It’s not enough to "just" design the world's best catalyst – it has to be the best but also sustainable and scalable. We look forward to setting the direction for the future Power-to-X revolution and ensuring Denmark can take the green lead.
