João dos Santos, a Técnico PhD student in Sustainable Energy Systems, won first place in the 112CO2EU Consortium Challenge, which awarded the best proposals for the challenge “Opportunities for integrating methane decomposition with other processes”.

The winning proposal was based on his doctoral work plan, supervised by professors Paulo Ferrão (Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research – IN+) and Rui Vasco Silva (Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability – CERIS), and was distinguished by its environmental impact, scalability and ease of implementation.

The researcher, who will receive a monetary award to conduct his research, shares “I am very honoured to have been distinguished for my simple contribution to the path of an inclusive energy transition of existing energy sources and vectors with more rational and more efficient use”.

The 112CO2 project, funded by the European Commission, proposes socially acceptable, sustainable and easy-to-implement technology to rapidly decarbonize the energy sector at competitive prices. The aim of the project is to develop science and technology for the low-temperature methane decomposition reaction, which allows the production of hydrogen without carbon oxides from natural gas, biogas and synthetic methane.