The 1st CRERC International Seminar
On August 1, 2023, the first CRERC International Seminar was held at a hybrid of the Hitachi campus and online, and two topics on basic research on fuel utilization were presented in English by the Utilization Unit.
The opening remarks were made by Associate Professor Yasuyuki Sakai, Deputy Director of CRERC, followed by presentations by Dr. Mustafa Fikri, University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and Dr. Shunsuke Suzuki, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), on combustion processes of biofuels and synthetic fuels in internal combustion engines and soot formation processes, respectively.
During this seminar, it was pointed out that "even if carbon-recycling technology can reduce carbon dioxide emissions, soot formation cannot be avoided as long as carbon is burned." On the other hand, it was also noted that it is possible to design fuels that suppress the formation of such soot, and the discussion on fuels that should exist in the carbon-recycling era became lively.
The seminar was attended not only by faculty, staff, and students from the university, but also by many people from industry, with over 100 people participating both on-site and online.