The administrative headquarters of the Center for Innovation in New Energies (CINE) was inaugurated on Wednesday (15/12), a multi-institutional center that works to research new, clean and sustainable ways of generating and storing energy. The new common space is located on Rua Michel Debrun, in a building linked to the Faculty of Chemical Engineering (FEQ) at Unicamp, in the University City "Zeferino Vaz”.
The environment has workstations for the support team for researchers and linked projects. The headquarters also has a common area and a meeting room that will provide a suitable environment for the development of collaborations, partnerships and other interactions necessary for cutting-edge research and technology transfer. "This new environment aims to develop interdisciplinary research projects and teaching activities, through the integration of high-level researchers, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students, in an extremely collaborative space", said José Antonio Teixeira Junior, manager CINE executive.
Funded by the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp) and Shell, CINE is directed by professor from the Chemistry Institute (IQ) at Unicamp Ana Flávia Nogueira. She succeeds Professor Rubens Maciel Filho, from FEQ, who was the first director of the Center.
The inauguration event, with a limited audience due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, was attended by around 40 people, including authorities from CINE's leading institutions (Unicamp, University of São Paulo and the Institute for Energy and Energy Research). Nuclear), directors and managers of Shell, coordinators, researchers and administrative assistants of CINE.
The dean of Research at Unicamp, professor João Marcos Travassos Romano, the director of CINE, professor Ana Flávia Nogueira and the director of Technology and Innovation at Shell, Olivier E. Wambersie, made statements.
In his speech, Romano highlighted the importance of collaborations for research, an essential aspect of multidisciplinary and multi-institutional centers like CINE. “We encourage centers like this to flourish at Unicamp”, said the dean. In turn, Wambersie highlighted the relevance of the global challenge of the energy transition - the change to an energy matrix without net carbon emissions - which, for him, gives an emotional boost to the scientific work that CINE carries out, in addition to designing a Shell's long-term partnership with the institutions involved. “CINE is an indispensable partner for Shell,” said the company executive.
In her speech, the director of CINE narrated the history of the Center, which began in 2017 with a notice from Fapesp in partnership with Shell. In this notice, four proposals were selected, led by her and professors Rubens Maciel Filho, Juarez da Silva (Instituto de Química de São Carlos da USP), Fábio Coral Fonseca, from IPEN, to make up CINE's four research programs. “We, coordinators, didn’t know each other until that moment,” she said.
The director of CINE thanked her predecessor, professor Maciel Filho, for leading the difficult task of building the Center's foundations. “Professor Rubens knows very well that it was not easy to form a center with three leading institutions, with three different foundations and in different locations”, she said, also thanking the first deputy director of CINE, Giancarlo Ciolla (Shell) for the efforts undertaken .
Currently, CINE brings together more than 270 researchers from eight institutions in São Paulo, having generated more than 300 scientific articles published in leading magazines, in addition to a series of patents in areas such as photovoltaic energy, green hydrogen, batteries, supercapacitors and transformation of gas gases. greenhouse effect in raw materials for industry. “I am very proud to say that, after three years since the beginning of activities, CINE is a successful center”, stated the director, congratulating everyone who contributed to this result.
Read more:
Brazilian research advances the understanding of materials that are the future of solar energy
New method facilitates industrial-scale manufacturing of perovskite solar cells