Apart from DTU and AAU, participants are Stanford, Utrecht and Toronto Universities and from Denmark, Universities in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Southern Denmark. Their knowledge is widespread into areas as chemistry, robotics, materials and energy. One important task for the two leaders of CAPeX, Tejs Vegge from DTU and Frede Blaabjerg from AAU Energy, is to make such a broad alliance work for so many years.

That doesn’t scare Frede Blaabjerg, who emphasizes how important the mission is.

- In the end, materials for energy is the development, which will decide whether the green transition is successful, says Frede Blaabjerg.

One example is magnets, which are important in electrical motors, that are everywhere in EV-cars, washing machines etc. The production of efficient magnets needs rare types of soil, which are a geopolitical challenge as most are found in China, and it is a finite resource. That’s not sustainable. One of the tasks in CAPeX is to find substitutes for the rare earth materials.  

Aalborg University has several researchers in CAPeX, apart from Frede Blaabjerg. Søren Højgaard Jensen, Huai Wang, Lasse Rosendahl and Pooya Davari from AAU Energy takes part as well, as does Kjeld Petersen and Simon Bøgh from Department of Materials and Production.

The researchers from AAU have knowledge about power electronics, which controls the electrolysis process in Power-to-X. Control is more important, than formerly known. There is a need for ‘smart power’.  

AAU also has a key role with Grid2Atoms and Atoms2Grid. It’s about ‘digital twins’, computer simulations which on almost atomic level, can simulate new materials. The simulations are scalable to large, complex systems as an energy-island or a power grid. Such models are already in use at AAU and will be important to accelerate the development of new materials to between 5 and 10 times as fast as today – which is the target of CAPeX.

Just as important is, that the simulation models can be turned around. In stead of simulations of how new materials affects the power grid, the researchers get the power grid to define, which characteristics is needed in new materials to fit the system and be efficient and durable. Afterwards they can search for such materials.

CAPeX

The pioneer center CAPeX will develop and implement a powerful platform for rapid development of materials and a data infrastructure in which new materials for, for example, catalysts are discovered and designed directly for their actual operating conditions.

CAPeX Official Website 

Pioneer Center

The establishment of the pioneer centers is a national initiative managed by the Danish National Research Foundation to which the Ministry of Higher Education and Science has taken the initiative. The establishment takes place in close collaboration and co-funding between the Danish National Research Foundation, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, VILLUM FONDEN, and universities in Denmark.

Read more about pioneer centers (Link to The Danish National Research Foundation)