Pioneer Center for Accelerating P2X Materials Discovery – CAPeX
Center leader:
Professor Tejs Vegge/ co.lead Frede Blaabjerg
Period:
May 2023 – April 2036
Host institution(s)
DTU Energy/AAU Energy
Grant:
300 mil. DKK
Link:
The Pioneer Center for Accelerating P2X Materials Discovery—in daily parlance CAPeX—will, among other activities, develop more efficient and robust materials to convert water and CO2 into sustainable fuels and chemicals using green power from wind turbines and solar cells.
The most efficient materials used today to produce hydrogen by means of electrolysis are based on rare minerals and earth elements. One of the most important challenges for CAPeX is to develop new sustainable catalysts for electrolysis that are scalable and can be used globally, and to provide sustainable solutions for, for example, heavy transport and air traffic which can be made so efficient and inexpensive that they meet the UN climate goals.
CAPeX brings together leading experts and competences from the Danish universities and three international consortia for the development of a new powerful materials acceleration platform (MAP) for the rapid development of materials. A MAP combines computer simulations, experiments, and synthesis robots in a closed loop, including by means of artificial intelligence. The platform is expected to increase the pace of development of new materials five to ten times.
The center is run in a partnership between DTU and Aalborg University (AAU), and is located in a new interdisciplinary ‘Climate Challenge Laboratory’ at DTU. Here, researchers from DTU, AAU, the University of Copenhagen, Aarhus University, and the University of Southern Denmark will create a ground-breaking interdisciplinary environment for Power-to-X technology in collaboration with international partners from Stanford University, Utrecht University, and University of Toronto.
What is a Pioneer Center?
The establishment of the Pioneer Centers is an ambitious national undertaking initiated by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science and developed in close cooperation (and co-financing) between the Minister, the Danish National Research Foundation, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Villum Foundation and the universities.