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DTU joins the Brazilian boost of research in Energy Technologies

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The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the Shell Company have established an international Center for Innovation on New Energies (CINE) with strong industrial involvement and long term recourses for a clear energy future. DTU Energy has joined as a partner.

DTU Energy has entered into partnership with the international Center for Innovation on New Energies (CINE), based in São Paulo, Brazil.

The new research center was founded with the mission to perform world class research in the areas of energy carriers, energy storage, methane to products and computational material science and chemistry, and DTU Energy is invited as it is one of the world’s top-ranking research departments in energy research.

“It is a great opportunity to enter an international network with some of the best universities within the field of energy research,” explains Professor Vincenzo Esposito, DTU Energy.

"The aim of CINE is to think energy in new ways, to confront the old dogma and to create new, innovative ways and paths of doing research in energy technologies, and this makes it a perfect place for us"
Vincenzo Esposito, Professor, DTU Energy

He spent four months of 2017 in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, researching and networking with the best Brazilian and international researchers, and now the informal scientific network has matured into CINE.

Brazil has by law decreed that energy companies operating in Brazil have to donate one percent of their earnings to research in clean energy, opening up for cooperation between Shell and other international energy companies and the Brazilian research sector.

“We are talking large resources here with strong industrial involvement, not only academia, and it will boost the Brazilian research in clean energy technologies on a very large scale,” says Vincenzo Esposito.

With generous contribution from Shell, the research in solar concentration, gas refinement, CO2 capture, and other kinds of clean energies are going full speed and will likely go on for at least a decade. Other international partners are Stanford, Yale, the University of Aveiro, and Forschungszentrum Jülich to name a few.

“The aim of CINE is to think energy in new ways, to confront the old dogma and to create new, innovative ways and paths of doing research in energy technologies, and this makes it a perfect place for us. We are seen as a very efficient, top-level research department, and we will greatly benefit from CINE.”

DTU Energy is taking part in two out of eight major research fields, namely electrochemical converters and thermochemical conversion. CINE will arrange for PhDs and postdocs to be sent to DTU Energy, while researchers and professors from DTU Energy will participate in conferences and international workshops in Brazil. A win-win for all involved parties.

“DTU is not the main driver, but we are experts, we help and exchange knowledge together with excellent partners,” says professor Vincenzo Esposito.

The first of the CINE PhDs will arrive at DTU Energy in 2019.

Partners in the international Center for Innovation on New Energies (CINE)

Gleb Wataghin Physics Institute, Chemistry Institute, School of Chemical Engineering and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Campinas (Brazil), National Institute for Space Research (Brazil), Stanford University/SLAC (USA), University of Warwick (UK), University of Bristol (UK), Yale University (USA), Chemistry Department, Physics Department and Materials Engineering Department at Federal University of São Carlos (Brazil), Centro de Tecnologia de Informação Renato Archer (Brazil), Federal University of ABC (Brazil), Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares (Brazil), Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal), Université Grenoble Alpes (France), Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), DTU Energy (Denmark), Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo (Brazil), Federal University of São Paulo (Brazil), Paulista State University (Brazil), Institute of Chemistry, Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, and Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Languages of Ribeirão Preto, USP (Brazil)