Innovation was in focus at the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering’s annual Research Day. The department wishes to support the commercialization of its research by encouraging and supporting innovation and entrepreneurship amongst its students and researchers.
30 PhD students from the department’s six research centres were given the opportunity to present their work at a poster session, which was evaluated for innovative potential by a committee of faculty members from the department.
CERE PhD student Arne Gladis’ poster entitled “Can enzymes save the world’s climate?” received first prize for innovation potential by the committee and was also nominated for best research. His project entitled “Enzyme enhanced CO2 absorption rate-based modeling and pilot plant validation” is supervised by Assoc. Prof. Nicolas von Solms and Prof. John Woodley, and is about improving CO2 absorption in solvents that can be regenerated with low energy by means of enzymes. The project is funded through the EU FP7 project “INTERACT”
“I’m very happy that my research was so well perceived”, says Arne Gladis. “It’s always helpful to get feedback, especially as a young scientist. The fact that it was judged innovative by the jury confirms that I’m on the right track.”
With the honour came a cheque of DKK 25,000 (€3,360) for research purposes, which Arne expects will go towards more expensive equipment for his pilot facility and maybe a conference.