The shirts were mostly blue but the day was otherwise cloaked in a different color as not only the summer trees outside contributed to make DTU green last Friday.Hundreds of students from all over the world were gathered to compete against each other in this year’s Green Challenge, but also to join forces in the pursuit of a better, greener future.138 abstracts were presented to the judges, 11 of which had KT’s signature on it. On top of that, several of the contributions from KT came from students of the Master programme at Sino-Danish Center in China.The students will be in Denmark for the summer where they – besides participating in Green Challenge – will visit Novozymes, Haldor Topsøe and Hempel in week 28 and carry out tests in the Pilot Hall in week 29-31.

Tian Tian stands excitedly in front of the board and computer screen, on which she and her group are presenting their abstract titled “Extraction of phenols from coal tar by Ionic liquids”. It’s almost as if she can’t wait to tell interested bystanders about it.

“Extracting harmful phenols from bio-oil creates cleaner bio-oil and less toxic gasses. It’s also more efficient to use Ionic liquids instead of the catalysts, which are currently used in the industry. The catalysts are hard to recycle, the Ionic liquid can be recycled many times”, says Tian Tian.

Tian Tian from Sino-Danish Centre in China. Photo by: Rasmus Højmark Ravn

As a student of Sino-Danish Centre, she is just one of the participants from China who have travelled halfway around the world to participate in Green Challenge 2015 and spend the summer the KT summer university in Denmark. Most of them are native Chinese, but the group also consists of two Danish members.
“It’s all about how we can make energy cheaper. The cost of extraction with Ionic liquids is about the same as the industrial catalysts, but consumes less energy with lower pressure and temperature“, says Imran Khan who has spent the last two years at Sino-Danish Center.

Imran Khan and the rest of the “Ionic liquid group”. Photo by: Rasmus Højmark Ravn

Only a stone’s throw from Imran Khan and his group – in the VIP section – Henrik Teglborg stands. Like his fellow Dane, he has studied in China for the last two years and has now finished his master thesis, which his presentation, “Development of Alternative Diesel Oxidation Catalysts”, is based on.

“We live in a world with much pollution from exhaust gasses. In diesel motors, the Diesel Oxidation Catalyst is an important part of the exhaust aftertreatment system, but the use of noble metals like platinum makes it an expensive component“, says Henrik Teglborg, who has therefore experimented with using iron instead of platinum.
Unfortunately, this time KT wasn’t amongst the winners as the prizes were handed out, but together with the rest of the participants, the students of KT and SDC were on the receiving end of the praise from Laura Storm of the think tank Sustania, who thanked them for their commitment to a greener future.

Henrik Teglborg. Photo by: Rasmus Højmark Ravn