The Novo Nordisk Foundation funds the world's first interdisciplinary research center to convert CO2 in the atmosphere into sustainable raw materials

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Sep 22, 2021, 01:00 ET

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Sept. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Novo Nordisk Foundation has awarded €84.7 million to establish a new research center to identify innovative solutions to reduce the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere and technologies to recycle CO₂. The Center will be based at Aarhus University in Denmark with six satellite institutions in the United States, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands.

CO₂ in the atmosphere is one of the main causes of man-made climate change. Seriously curbing the rise in global temperature requires more than reducing emissions of CO₂. It is also necessary to extract CO₂ from the atmosphere and recycle it in products that are currently based on carbon extracted from fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

A new research center brings together international researchers across disciplines and sectors in pursuing one common goal: finding solutions enabling CO₂ to be captured, processed and recycled as raw materials in new products.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation is awarding a grant of DKK 630 million (€84.7 million) for establishing this center named Novo Nordisk Foundation CO₂ Research Center. The Center will be based at Aarhus University in Denmark and also comprises six satellite institutions in the United States, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. The Center will also collaborate with a wide range of industry partners and other international academic institutions.

No research field can solve this challenge alone

The Center will create an interdisciplinary platform that combines various scientific fields such as chemistry, the life sciences and systems analysis. This research will pave the way for scalable technologies that can efficiently capture and recycle CO₂. Currently, there is no research center in Denmark or internationally that operates in this way towards solving the CO₂ problem. The Center will therefore be an absolute frontrunner in combatting rising CO₂ levels in the atmosphere.

"The Center will bring together leading researchers across disciplines in pursuit of a common goal of finding methods that can reduce the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere. The fundamental research at the Center will be inspired by extensive interaction with relevant industry partners. This will enable us to rapidly implement new technologies for the benefit of society," says Alfred M. Spormann, who has been appointed the Director of the Center and is currently a professor at Stanford University in the United States.

CO₂replacing oil, gas and coal

One example of a solution the Center will investigate is producing precursors for plastic from water, CO₂ and electrons created by processing the captured CO₂ with bacteria and electrochemistry. This solution will provide an opportunity to replace fossil feedstocks such as oil and coal in producing plastic.

Another example of a technology the Center will study is developing a facility that uses microorganisms to convert CO₂ into fuel. In this case, CO₂ could also replace the use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.

The establishment of the Center will enable these developments to be accelerated so that technological solutions that currently look like scenarios from the distant future can become reality within a few years.

"The Novo Nordisk Foundation CO₂Research Center sets out to become a powerhouse in our struggle against the global climate crisis. We need to act quickly and develop solutions that can help not only to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere but also convert the harmful CO₂ into valuable raw materials that can replace oil and coal, thereby creating negative CO₂ emissions," says Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, Chief Executive Officer of the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

About The Novo Nordisk Foundation CO₂ Research Center

The Novo Nordisk Foundation CO₂ Research Center will be interdisciplinary, with a mission to mitigate climate change by exploring and developing innovative technologies that can be used to capture, store and recycle CO₂. The Center will also collaborate with industry and relevant decision-makers to ensure that the solutions developed are scalable and implementable.

Initially, the Center will focus on solutions for capturing CO₂ from point sources such as factories and power plants. To avoid perpetuating the emission of additional CO₂ through fossil fuels, the Center will focus on capturing CO₂ from point sources powered by renewable energy. In the longer term, the Center will also strive to develop methods for capturing and processing CO₂ directly from the atmosphere.

The Center will be based at Aarhus University with six satellite institutions: University of Copenhagen, Technical University of Denmark, Stanford University, University of Tromsø, University of Tübingen and Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. In addition, the Center will collaborate with several industry partners and other universities in Denmark and elsewhere.

The Foundation has awarded the Center a grant totalling DKK 630 million (€84.7 million) over the next 7 years. The Center will start in autumn 2021 and is expected to be operational in Aarhus from January 2022.

About the Novo Nordisk Foundation

The Novo Nordisk Foundation is an independent Danish foundation with corporate interests. It has two objectives: 1) to provide a stable basis for the commercial and research activities of the companies in the Novo Group; and 2) to support scientific, humanitarian and social causes.

The vision of the Foundation is to contribute significantly to research and development that improves the lives of people and the sustainability of society. Since 2010, the Foundation has donated more than DKK 30 billion (€4 billion), primarily for research at public institutions and hospitals in Denmark and the other Nordic countries as well as research-based treatment and prevention of diabetes. Read more at

www.novonordiskfonden.dk/en

SOURCE Novo