探花直播 of Cambridge - Singapore

Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore visits Cambridge overseas research centre

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探花直播Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore (CARES) is hosting two projects聽that aim to aid Singapore鈥檚 business transition away from petrochemicals towards a net-zero emissions target by 2050.

Under the newly launched CREATE Thematic Programme in Decarbonisation supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF), the聽two projects will investigate non-fossil fuel-based pathways for Singapore鈥檚 chemical manufacturing industry and energy systems.聽

Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the NRF, Mr Heng Swee Keat toured the first of three laboratories for the programme to view the technical capabilities required for the various project teams, including CARES鈥� projects on the Sustainable Manufacture of Molecules and Materials in Singapore (SM3), and Hydrogen and Ammonia Combustion in Singapore (HYCOMBS).

SM3 aims to provide a path to a net-zero, high-value chemical manufacturing industry in Singapore. Its core goal is to address the dependency of聽producers of performance chemicals on starting materials that typically come from fossil-based carbon sources. 探花直播SM3 team hope to develop effective synthetic methods that best convert cheap and abundant fossil-free raw materials into high-value molecules, for use in sectors聽such as medicines and agrochemicals.

In project HYCOMBS, universities from Singapore, UK, Japan, France and Norway will work together to investigate the underlying combustion process of hydrogen and ammonia to minimise pollutants and accelerate industry innovation.聽

As part of the lab demonstrations on decarbonisation, CARES showcased an additional ongoing activity with City Energy investigating hydrogen-rich town gas for residential and commercial cooking stoves.

Mr Heng Swee Keat said: " 探花直播need to tackle climate change and its impact grows ever more urgent. During my visit to Cambridge CARES (Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore) 鈥� Cambridge 探花直播's first and only research centre outside the UK 鈥� I witnessed how research and international collaboration are driving innovative solutions to combat climate change, particularly in the area of decarbonisation.

"In just a decade, CARES has established cutting-edge R&D facilities dedicated to decarbonisation projects that not only reduce emissions but also pave the way for a more sustainable future for Singapore. From hydrogen combustion and laser-based combustion diagnostics to the development of cleaner fuels for gas stoves, their work is closely aligned with the goals outlined in our Singapore Green Plan 2030, and achieving Singapore鈥檚 net-zero emissions goal by 2050.

"It was encouraging to hear from Director of CARES, Professor Markus Kraft, as he shared how being based in the CREATE facility at the National 探花直播 of Singapore facilitates interactions with researchers from diverse countries and disciplines. This collaborative and interdisciplinary approach embodies the essence of research 鈥� working together to address shared global challenges."

Since 2013, CARES has been involved in research programmes with Nanyang Technological 探花直播 and the National 探花直播 of Singapore as the 探花直播 of Cambridge鈥檚 first overseas centre. One of its early flagship programmes, the Centre for Carbon Reduction in Chemical Technologies (C4T), has investigated areas from sustainable reaction engineering, electrochemistry, and maritime decarbonisation聽to digitalisation.

By building on this foundation and leveraging the local talent pool, CARES has attracted new partners from international universities and institutes for SM3 and HYCOMBS. This includes EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, which will provide skills in the domain AI for chemistry. CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the Norwegian 探花直播 of Science and Technology, and Tohoku 探花直播 from Japan will contribute technical equipment and key talent in hydrogen and ammonia combustion.

Adapted from a release originally published by CARES.聽

Mr Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore and Chairman of the National Research Foundation (NRF) paid a visit to the聽探花直播 of Cambridge鈥檚 overseas research centre聽in Singapore and viewed its聽technical capabilities for decarbonisation research.

Cambridge CARES/Back Button Media

Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Heng Swee Keat, viewing decarbonisation activities at Cambridge CARES

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cambridge joins international partners in Singapore as country's flagship research programme celebrates 10th anniversary

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探花直播Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) was established in 2007, with funding from Singapore鈥檚 National Research Foundation (NRF), to allow research-intensive institutions from all over the world to set up research centres in Singapore and establish research partnerships with local universities.

Today, CREATE supports collaborations between four Singaporean universities 鈥� the National 探花直播 of Singapore (NUS), the Nanyang Technological 探花直播 (NTU), the Singapore 探花直播 of Technology and Design (SUTD) and the Singapore Management 探花直播 (SMU) 鈥� and seven international partners 鈥� ETH Zurich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technical 探花直播 of Munich, Hebrew 探花直播 of Jerusalem, 探花直播 of California, Berkeley, Shanghai Jiao Tong 探花直播 and the 探花直播 of Cambridge.

To mark its 10th聽anniversary, CREATE held an international symposium attended by university leaders as well as Singapore's former president, Dr Tony Tan.

Speaking at the聽event on 1 December,聽Mr Heng Swee Keat, Singapore鈥檚 Minister for Finance and Deputy Chairman of the NRF said:

鈥淲e designed CREATE to encourage interaction not just across a range of disciplines and cultures, but also of perspectives 鈥� from dreamers to researchers, designers and users 鈥� thereby fuelling exchanges between the spheres of research and innovation.鈥�

鈥淏y bringing together researchers, policy makers and end users, CREATE enables serendipitous interactions and discovery. It creates a research environment that is richer than the sum of its parts, allowing researchers to innovate and provide solutions to real world problems.鈥�

鈥淭oday,鈥� he added, 鈥淐REATE is an international research hub, built on strong institutional partnerships, involving almost 1,100 people from over 40 countries. CREATE鈥檚 projects are relevant to Singapore and impactful on the global level.鈥�

CARES: a hub for research collaboration

探花直播Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore (CARES), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the 探花直播 of Cambridge, was set up as one of CREATE鈥檚 collaborative initiatives in April 2013. It hosts a number of research collaborations between the 探花直播 of Cambridge, NTU, NUS and industrial partners in Singapore and elsewhere.

Representing CARES at the event, its Director, Prof. Markus Kraft, explained: 鈥淐ARES creates and fosters cutting-edge science in the area of energy efficiency in chemical technologies.聽We want to do first class research, world-leading research. We want to understand the world better. And we want to contribute to some of the pressing problems facing mankind 鈥� in particular, global warming."

Prof. Gehan Amaratunga, Professor of Engineering at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, was involved in CARES from its inception: 鈥淐ARES is driven by the Cambridge attitude to research: to think about things deeply, and to deliver results that are significant and worthwhile. But that is coupled with the Singapore culture of hard work, and results-driven research. 探花直播mixture of those two research cultures under the CARES umbrella generates a unique symbiosis.鈥�

He adds: 鈥淚t is worth noting that CARES was the first time that the 探花直播 of Cambridge had established anything under its name outside of Cambridge. 探花直播Singaporean government has put resources into research, and is keen for international researchers to come and work in Singapore. From the Cambridge perspective, it gives us an opportunity to globalise our research by engaging in a location that is an Asian hub, directly in between Asia鈥檚 two largest population centres 鈥� India and China. Singapore is a melting pot where researchers from the entire region are present. 探花直播impact of what we do in Singapore will be felt all over Asia.鈥�

Reducing carbon footprint and energy demand

CARES鈥� first research programme聽is聽the聽Cambridge Centre for Carbon Reduction in Chemical Technology (C4T), a partnership between Cambridge and Singapore set up in 2013 to tackle the problem of assessing and reducing the carbon footprint of the petrochemical plants and electrical network on Singapore鈥檚 Jurong Island. Since its inception, it has brought together researchers in fields including Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Information Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Materials Science and Metallurgy.

Lowering the cost聽of CO鈧偮燾apture and developing technologies for waste heat utilisation have been among the main drivers for C4T鈥檚 research. It addresses the problem of carbon abatement in chemical technologies though Interdisciplinary Research Programmes that combine state-of-the-art experimental analysis with advanced modelling research.

Speaking at CREATE鈥檚 10th anniversary event in Singapore, Dr聽Lim聽Mei Qi, Project Officer for CARES, explained: 鈥淐4T proposes ways of reducing the carbon footprint聽of Singapore while supporting economic growth. To build upon CARES鈥� early success we will continue to engage with Singapore's stakeholders, including government agencies, policymakers, and academic and industrial research organisations. We hope, by doing so, to positively contribute to Singapore鈥檚 ratification of the Paris Agreement on climate change.鈥�

A laboratory built from scratch 鈥� via Skype

Dr Jethro Akroyd, Senior Research Associate in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology鈥檚 Computational Modelling Group,聽worked on the design of聽the CARES laboratory in Singapore.

Today he spends most of his time supervising CARES students based in Cambridge, but he remembers the early challenges of designing lab space remotely: 鈥淲e communicated with the architects and our external consultant in Singapore via Skype. We often had Skype meetings at聽5:30聽in the morning 鈥� the only time people were available both in Singapore and in Cambridge. Those were long days.鈥�

鈥淥ne of the biggest difficulties was explaining to people in Singapore what was required in the laboratories in order to deliver flexible research space. And even once we figured out what we wanted, we had to work out how to fit this into the physical constraints of the space that was available at CREATE. Imagine sitting in a small, cold room on a dark Cambridge morning trying to explain complicated ideas to a team on the other side of the world who can only see you via a video link.鈥�

鈥淲e built up a very successful working relationship with the consultant and the architects. This culminated in my first visit to Singapore, during the design process, when we had our first face-to-face meeting as a team. That was very special.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 been great to see designs you worked out on paper in reality, and you can see how the research space was going to be used in order to understand the fundamental combustion and pollutant formation processes that are really at the heart of our role in the research project.鈥�

In June 2017, the CARES C4T Laboratory was awarded the BCA Green Mark for Laboratories Platinum Award, in recognition of its sustainable efforts and commitment to reduce the environmental impact of lab operations.

An industrial park simulator

CARES C4T鈥檚 flagship project聽is the J-Park Simulator (JPS) 鈥� a tool for the design, analysis and operation optimisation of eco-industrial parks developed聽by C4T researchers. It aims to allow sector agencies, industry and infrastructure providers to model the impact of different 鈥渨hat-if鈥� scenarios in real time. 探花直播simulator is able to analyse different scenarios affecting chemical processes, electricity grid and building management to provide the visual information needed to support optimisation, decision-making and scenario analysis.

鈥淚n order to reach an optimum symbiotic relationship among industries and networks, all resources need to be taken into consideration simultaneously 鈥� this is the idea behind J-Park Simulator," explained Dr聽Lim.

Split-site PhD

Another successful initiative has been聽the聽Cambridge-CARES聽studentship聽programme, which allows Cambridge PhD students to spend two years based in Singapore with the C4T team.

Jacob Martin is a third-year PhD student at CARES currently doing research into how to stop soot from forming in engines.

鈥淪omething that I like about CARES is being able to work with a lot of different people from different universities. Because we are physically located within the CREATE tower, it is easier to interact with other universities and do a lot of research with other interest groups. And because we have access to NUS鈥� equipment, we can expand what we are doing in Cambridge. 探花直播availability of resources has been a real selling point for the programme.鈥�

He cites the Visiting Scientists scheme as helping to establish international research connections. This invitation-only programme attracts eminent professors from around the globe, such as聽Emeritus Professor Karl Johan 脜str枚m from the Department of Automatic Control, LTH, Lund 探花直播, to聽stay and work with C4T researchers in Singapore for a few weeks.

Jacob hopes that his research will lead to new technologies to reduce pollution from diesel engines, which has an impact on climate as well as on human health.

鈥淚t always helps to have more connections in research. Being at CARES will definitely be helpful to establish collaborations not only in Asia but also with universities in America. There are many benefits to collaboration. You can achieve a lot more. 探花直播more minds you put to a problem, the faster you can solve it.鈥�

He adds: 鈥淗aving people with different cultural backgrounds allows for new and interesting solutions to problems. Cambridge has a particular way of dealing with problems 鈥撀爁ocus, focus, focus, and really nail the fundamentals. Sometimes that means you lose a bit of perspective. Something that鈥檚 been really good about collaborating with people in Singapore is that it鈥檚 less about the minutiae and more about the big picture. Singapore is facing a lot of big problems to do with climate change, energy, water. It鈥檚 small enough that you can make big changes, and use it as a model for other cities all over the world.鈥�

Teaming up

CREATE makes this collaboration possible by supporting projects through the聽Intra-CREATE programme. A recent example is the three-year project involving researchers from the 探花直播 of Cambridge, the 探花直播 of California, Berkeley, the National 探花直播 of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological 探花直播 (NTU), which was recently awarded SGD$5m (拢2.8m) by Singapore鈥檚 National Research Foundation.

探花直播project, which will start in January 2018, seeks to develop ways of transforming carbon dioxide (CO鈧�) emitted as part of the industrial process into compounds that are useful in the chemical industry supply chain. It will be co-led by Prof. Alexei Lapkin ( 探花直播 of Cambridge/CARES) and Prof. Joel Ager (UC-Berkeley and聽Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore (BEARS Ltd)).

Looking ahead

After a successful start, CARES is now taking stock of the knowledge created over the past four years and planning for its next phase.

Prof Markus Kraft (CARES' Director) commented: 鈥淲e have identified opportunities to save over eight million tonnes of CO鈧偮爌er year for Singapore 鈥� this is about 20% of their annual emissions. 探花直播idea of聽C4T Phase 2 is聽to take this forward. At the core of the proposal for聽C4T聽Phase聽Two is to look at ideas generated in聽Phase聽One, take them much closer to the market and let them be adopted by industry.鈥�

鈥淥ne of the ideas we developed in聽Phase聽One was to blend biodiesel with diesel fuel for road transport. We鈥檝e shown this can save about one million tonnes per year of CO鈧偮爁or Singapore. What we鈥檙e now looking at in聽Phase聽Two is whether we can do anything similar for marine shipping traffic. This has the potential to save something like another one million tonnes of CO鈧偮爄n Singapore, but it also has the potential to be adopted worldwide. This could have a much broader global impact, far beyond just the shipping in Singapore Strait.鈥�

For further information on CARES and the C4T research programme please contact Ms Louise Renwick, CARES Communications and External Affairs Executive, caresco@hermes.cam.ac.uk,; Tel: +6566015447聽

An international symposium at Singapore鈥檚 CREATE campus highlights the global challenges of sustainable energy and suggests innovative ways of reducing industry鈥檚 carbon footprint聽

We want to do first-class research. We want to understand the world better. And we want to contribute to some of the pressing problems facing mankind 鈥� in particular, global warming.

Markus Kraft, Director of CARES

CREATE tower, Singapore

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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