“You can see how our research is really taking off”

Mr. Marquardt, in discussions about the climate crisis, we usually hear from geologists, climatologists and meteorologists, but rarely from engineers. Does that bother you?

It’s understandable that geoscientists are usually the people who are approached when there are questions. But what generally gets underestimated is the role the engineering sciences could play in the climate crisis.

What role is that?

The role of technical problem-solver. The best synergies result when engineering scientists and climate scientists join forces, because both groups bring highly complementary skills to the table. For example, in principle the Earth’s atmosphere is a big chemical reactor in which reactions and transport take place under complex boundary conditions. Engineering scientists have complementary skills for analyzing, developing and controlling chemical reactions, and they use complementary methods.

When did you realize that technology research can play such an important role in dealing with the climate crisis?

That happened while I was studying at the university. My background is in process engineering; that involves processes in which substances are converted by adding energy. And back then, I saw that the energy requirements for some processes in the chemical industry could be cut in half. With numerical simulations and optimizations using data-based and theoretical mathematical models, we can gain a lot of insights into how to realize those potential reductions.

Just a moment... Would you like to be more specific? Can you name some examples?

Separating liquid mixtures into their components is a problem that needs to be solved in most of the chemical industry’s production processes. That is often done with distillation, which makes use of the different boiling points of the pure substances in the mixture. This technology alone accounts for about 40 percent of worldwide energy consumption in the chemical industry. Significant cuts in energy consumption can be achieved by improving these processes, for example by heat integration, by combining separation with chemical synthesis in a single apparatus, or by using alternative separation technologies such as membranes. And if we do a thorough review of the production process as a whole and look for radical new process paths, we can reduce its energy requirements to a fraction of their earlier value.

Is the prospect of helping to cope with the climate crisis something that motivates young people in the engineering sciences?

Definitely! You wouldn’t believe how many students are interested in exactly these methods that have always been connected with the chemical industry but are now finding uses in the transformation of the energy system. Take carbon capture as an example, a process for extracting CO₂ from industrial emissions or directly from the surrounding air for use as a carbon source for chemical products. That’s nothing more than gas separation of the kind that’s often applied in the chemical industry, even though it has to be realized at a much larger scale and under different conditions. Being able to contribute this knowledge to processes that help save the climate is something that motivates a lot of young scientists.

Could the engineering sciences be a kind of fire brigade?

(Laughs) If you’re referring to the speed at which firefighters arrive at the scene of a fire, I have to lower your expectations. This is not a situation where fast solutions can be implemented everywhere. Even when scientists have demonstrated and validated a technology or a process and proven that it works, it will still take a long time to roll it out and put it into practice on a large scale. We still have more than 25 years until 2050, which is when the EU wants to be carbon-neutral. And we will need that time in order to end our dependence on fossil fuels in our energy system, industrial production and mobility. Although…

Yes?

There are quite a few innovative technologies that are fully developed but have rarely or never been put to use because they weren’t economical given the low energy prices in the past. I’ve experienced such cases in my career where it was possible to switch to an alternative solution because of a change in conditions. Typical examples are bio-based processes for producing alcohols or organic acids from renewable carbon sources. Depending on the prices of energy and raw materials, these processes can be economically competitive – or not.

From your current perspective as a research manager, how can research institutions strategically position themselves to favor the emergence of such innovations?

All of the promising technologies that are on the horizon today have one thing in common – they’re based on the combined expertise of a wide range of disciplines. So the job of research institutions is to bring together researchers with complementary expertise to work on a specific problem. One of many examples is what is called power-to-X technology...

...in which surplus electricity from renewable sources is used for things like electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen.

Yes, hydrogen, or also synthesis gas and derivatives from co-electrolysis of CO₂ and water. But it will be a while before this technology is available at an industrial scale, and that will only happen if we bring the right people together. Doing it will require teams with expertise in fields like chemical catalysis, materials science, manufacturing technology and control engineering to develop designs with overall high efficiency levels and low production costs at all scales, from electrodes to cells to stacks and electrolyzers. Bringing together such interdisciplinary teams is the order of the day.

Looking at Forschungszentrum Jülich, what actions have you initiated there?

We’re very well positioned in the geosciences, our atmospheric research is outstanding, and we’re very strong in soil research and of course in energy research. So we have very good prospects. If we succeed in putting together strong, interdisciplinary teams and establishing conditions that are conducive to cooperation and transfer, then our research can really take off. And of course we also work with other research institutions. The broad expertise we have in the Helmholtz Association offers a lot of potential for an immense competitive advantage for all of us if we succeed in bringing together large, cross-institutional teams to cooperate in interdisciplinary working groups – something we have often done successfully in the past.