Wonderful news! Daniel has been awarded an Academy of Finland Research Fellowship to work on CELL2H2: Green Hydrogen and High-Value Chemicals by Electrocatalytic Valorisation of Cellulose. This involves a research grant with funding of €727 999 from the Research Council of Finland, which will allow Daniel to establish his independent research group at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.
Project summary:
Green hydrogen will be essential for the transition to clean energy, mitigate climate change and reduce our dependence on fossil resources. Water electrolysis is the leading technology for green hydrogen generation by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen but it consumes a significant amount of electricity. The proposed project aims to replace the process where water is converted to oxygen by the conversion of cellulose into more valuable chemicals (i.e. cellulose electrolysis). This new approach provides advantages such as lower energy consumption for hydrogen production, co-generation of specialty chemicals with higher value than oxygen, and valorisation of cellulose-rich biomass waste. This project will discover optimal materials for cellulose electrolysis and will gain definite understanding of this process to achieve the realisation of this technology for green hydrogen production, with potential to foster a carbon-neutral society and circular economy.