NUS CHI-Breakthrough Energy Fellows Workshop
1 November 2024
With the theme of “Emerging Hydrogen Technologies”, on the first day of November 2024, we were delighted to host a workshop together with Breakthrough Energy Fellows (BEF). Throughout the afternoon, we heard perspectives on the topic from academia, industry, and government agencies.
We started with an introduction from Dr John Lemmon (Senior Director of Innovation, Breakthrough Energy) on what Breakthrough Energy does and their strategy for hydrogen end-use. Dr Eric Toone (Chief Technical Officer, Breakthrough Energy) then taught us the importance of looking around the corner to where future energy demand will be and how hydrogen is the “Swiss army knife of chemistry” for meeting such demand.
Mr Desmond Chua, Director at the Low-Carbon Energy Research Programme Coordinating Office, introduced the program and how it has helped Singapore come closer to its goal of 50% hydrogen in its power sector by 2050. Visiting us from NTU, A/Prof Pei-Chen Su presented her research on solid-oxide fuel cells while A/Prof Li Hong discussed his perspectives on hydrogen for decarbonisation. Dr Sundar Chidambaram, Vice President-Strategy & Market Development of Siemens Energy, closed the presentations with an overview of Siemens Energy’s use of methanol and ammonia as hydrogen vectors.
Finally, Dr Lemmon, Dr Toone, and Dr Chidambaram returned to the stage with a very special guest, Prof Sir Konstantin Novoselov, Nobel Laureate and Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor here at NUS, for a panel discussion. “It’s really refreshing to see that there are landslides in hydrogen in recent years”, says Prof Novoselov, who though most well known for graphene discovery, has in recent years been very interested in the applications of 2D materials in industry, including in hydrogen-adjacent fields. Our panel of experts talked not only of the scale of technological breakthroughs needed in hydrogen, but the secret to achieving these breakthroughs, which is simply (or maybe not so simply) to find the right people to do it! And what’s the next challenge after hydrogen they said? Carbon technologies may just be the answer.
We finished the day with a networking session over light refreshments. Thank you to Breakthrough Energy for co-hosting and to our guests for attending!