Researchers Share CO₂ Capture Expertise at Innovandi Spring Week in Panama City

Earlier this month, Tânia Frade, Moisés Pinto, and Abeer Mohtar participated in the Innovandi Spring Week in Panama City, where they joined hundreds of delegates from over 40 academic institutions and more than 30 industrial members of the Innovandi network. During the congress, they ran a Knowledge Transfer Workshop on CO₂ capture using pillared clays in PSA processes, sharing their expertise—from clay preparation and scale-up to adsorption testing and PSA process simulation for flue gas treatment.

The CERENA team, which included MSc students Margarida Jesus, Inês Dias, and José Pereira from the Department of Chemical Engineering of Insituto Superior Técnico, have been key contributors to the Innovandi consortium. The project, concluded in 2024, focused on CO2 separation processes, specifically Pressure Swing Adsorption, a technology used to purify or isolate specific gases from mixtures.

The Innovandi network is making significant advances in reducing the environmental impact of the cement industry. The Spring Week event fostered support and collaboration, which is expected to help transition the project from pilot scale to full industrial application, with the goal of achieving net-zero concrete by 2050.