Featuring the motto ‘Flightpath to Sustainability: A CARE-O-SENE symposium on catalysis for aviation fuel’, German and South African scientists from the CARE-O-SENE research consortium met in early March to discuss the status of their respective work packages as well as new ideas and approaches.

‘This was a milestone event for CARE-O-SENE,’ said Dr Dirk Schär, Technical Manager Marketing and Sales at Sasol and Co-lead of the CARE-O-SENE programme, who also chaired the first conference session. ‘CARE-O-SENE is as much about the results as it is about the exchange of ideas, approaches, and best practices across the globe. Facilitating this as part of our scheduled ‘halfway meeting’ sparked a lot of thoughts for everyone present and will likely yield further research and application ideas in the months and years to come.’

Several consortium members presented findings on project progress over the course of two days from March 4th to 5th. Invited speakers also provided an external perspective to round off the thought exchange during the conference, including the presentations ‘Syngas generation from renewable feedstocks’ by Thomas Christensen, Topsoe, and ‘Green H2 and PtX perspectives: Globally and for South Africa’ by Brett Cohen on behalf of the the German Development Cooperation (GIZ).

A three-hour session on the second day of the conference gave room to promising academic talents: In a number of 10-minute research pitches, students associated with CARE-O-SENE got an opportunity to present their ideas and results. Empowering and educating young talents is an integral part and parcel of CARE-O-SENE’s remit, with a special focus on the international as well as industrial-institutional exchange between the members of the community.

The official programme was followed by intensive work package meetings. In addition to this, time was also set aside to allow the participants of the CARE-O-SENE Mentoring Programme to engage in their various chosen settings. Taking advantage of the opportunity to meet in person and directly exchange ideas, experiences and advice proved highly useful and added yet another substantial benefit to the event.