On 12 March, Sarah D’Adamo, SUN-PERFORM coordinator at Wageningen University & Research, presented the project’s latest results at Solar Fuels and Chemical Production from Algae, a webinar organised by S2B – Solar to Butanol.
The session brought together four EU-funded projects working on solar-to-X technologies—device that convert solar energy into fuels and high-value chemicals. Alongside Sarah, the speakers included Yagut Allahverdiyeva from the University of Turku (S2B – Solar to Butanol), Dorinde Kleinegris from NORCE (ALGAESOL), and Athanasios Chatzitakis from the University of Oslo (REFINE). Each project shared its approach to the shared challenge of making solar fuel and chemical production more efficient and eventually viable at scale.
Sarah presented SUN-PERFORM’s goals, explaining how the project plans to combine nanomaterials and synthetic biology to improve the efficiency of solar fuel production in microalgae. She also provided an update on progress over the past few months and answered a few technical questions from participants.
The webinar, though compact at an hour and a half, had a notable amount of questions, showing that there is a lot of technical interest across the research and industry communities working on sustainable fuels and chemicals.