German research foundation DFG is to fund a collaboration between RWTH University of Aachen in Germany and the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan. The aim is to accelerate hydrogen technologies.
Meeting the world's ever-growing energy needs has led to serious consequences for climate, biodiversity and ecology. It has become clear that a transition to a renewable and carbon-neutral energy economy is urgently needed. An acceleration of hydrogen technologies is necessary.
Hy-Potential
Hydrogen will play a key role in the future energy landscape for the storage of renewable energy. However, the rapid roll-out of a hydrogen infrastructure faces technological challenges. These include challenges relating to production, storage, energy use and methods for integrating the various renewable energy sources, energy sectors and geographical regions. This is where the German-Japanese international research group “Hy-Potential” comes in. Hy-Potential stands for: ‘Hydrogen – Fundamentals for Production, Storage and Transportation, Applications and Economy’. The German Research Foundation (DFG) established the research group and provides its funding.
Hydrogen technologies
In this group, 10 professors from RWTH and 11 from Tokyo Tech are conducting joint research. They focus on the important aspects of the hydrogen life cycle. These include production, storage and transport, electrochemical conversion in fuel cells, use in combustion processes, life cycle analyses and energy system analyses.
Thinking outside the box
Spokesperson for the group is Professor Heinz Pitsch, head of the Institute of Combustion Technology. "The research group expects participating PhD students and postdocs to think outside the box," says Pitsch. "Besides research, holistic training of early-stage researchers is an important goal of the Research Training Group. This is the only way they can help shape the hydrogen system of the future, taking into account all relevant aspects."
Promote careers for early-stage scientists
The group from Aachen is one of three international research training groups (IRTGs) recently established by the DFG. The other two groups have collaborated with partner institutions from India and Switzerland. The DFG is setting up a total of 17 new Research Training Groups (RTGs) to promote the careers of budding scientists. This was decided by the responsible DFG committee in Bonn. The new IRTGs will initially be funded for five years. This with a total amount of about €123 million, starting in autumn 2024. The funded research includes explainable AI in medicine, hydrogen as an energy source and human-environment systems.
Source: RWTH Aachen University
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