Key technology for a future without fossil fuels

In June and July 2025, catalyst researcher Nico Fischer spent some time at HZB. It was his sabbatical, he was relieved of his duties as Director of the Catalysis Institute in Cape Town for several months and was able to focus on research only. His institute is collaborating with HZB on two projects that aim to develop environmentally friendly alternatives using innovative catalyst technologies. The questions were asked by Antonia Rötger, HZB.

You work in South Africa. How do people there view climate change and the energy transition?

Although South Africa has enormous potential for renewable energy, it still generates 80 to 90 per cent of its electricity from coal. This will have to change, and our research is helping to make a fossil-free economy possible. However, we will still need carbon compounds, for example as aviation fuel. These fuels will no longer be produced from petroleum, but rather through new processes involving CO₂ and hydrogen, whereby the CO₂ is recycled, so to speak.

You also have regular contact with political decision-makers. How do you ensure effective communication?

It is not easy to convey your own enthusiasm. What drives me is understanding what is happening at the micro or nano level. However, this is not what politicians are interested in. In political discussions, you should not talk about how great the latest measurements were, but rather about how this research will help the local economy.

And politicians have very little time. If we can't get the message across in three minutes, the opportunity is lost. I learned a lot about communication during my time in industry, and still I often learn from colleagues — I even take notes during some talks on the quality of the presentation.

Could you please explain the mystery of catalysis in simple terms?

At school, we learned that catalysts speed up reactions without changing themselves. However, that's not entirely true. Gábor A. Somorjai, a well-known catalysis expert, put it this way: ‘If you examine a catalyst before and after the reaction, it's akin to observing a sperm cell and a speck of ash and claiming to understand the entire human life cycle from that.‘ So there's actually quite a lot going on. It's only in the last few years that we've had the experimental capabilities to study catalysts during catalytic reactions, and this is helping us to understand the process.

What are the benefits of collaborating with HZB?

The great thing about this partnership is that we really complement each other. At our institute, we synthesise the materials and test the catalysts. CARE-O-SENE also includes KIT, the Fraunhofer Institute IKTS as well as INERATEC, who operate the pilot plants and container-sized plants. The academic partners do the small-scale tests and contribute to the fundamental understanding, while Fraunhofer and INERATEC carry out the large-scale tests. Sasol carries out the very large-scale tests. And HZB ties everything together by characterising the materials. This is because the BESSY II light source provides truly ideal characterisation methods.

What would you like to see from a successor to BESSY II?

I would like to see a system that allows us to investigate the long-term behaviour of catalysts. This would also be crucial for our industrial partners. The scenario is that the catalyst is held in the beam for a short time every few days. This is already being planned so that we can operate it remotely.

So, you're sitting in South Africa controlling a robot that inserts different samples into the sample holder?

Exactly. We're really talking about months here. Some deposits build up slowly, so a catalyst might work great for the first 100 hours but then stop working after a few months.

It could also be the other way around. Some catalysts are mediocre at first but improve over time. To understand this, you need long-term experiments. This is not yet possible at synchrotron facilities, where you might be allocated a week of measurement time. Such long-term experiments would be incredibly helpful in achieving major advances in catalyst research.

The HZB aims to become greenhouse gas neutral by 2035. We have already taken some steps towards this goal, but we are not making progress in reducing air travel. Could projects like CARE-O-SENE help us solve this problem?

That's a difficult problem. It affects us particularly badly because we are located at the southern tip of Africa. We have to fly long distances to collaborate with partners or conduct certain measurements. The Corona pandemic has brought incredible progress in this regard with video conferences now working very well. Nevertheless, informal face-to-face meetings over a cup of coffee are still indispensable. We need to come up with more ideas on how to implement this in a smart and fair way. CARE-O-SENE will not solve the problem quickly, either. In the foreseeable future, we will only be able to replace a small portion of the fuel. Air traffic must decrease significantly.

Thank you very much for talking to us!

Info box

Nico Fischer is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where he heads the Institute for Catalysis. He studied at KIT in Karlsruhe, earned his doctorate in Cape Town and gained industrial experience as a research group leader at BASF in Ludwigshafen. He investigates and develops novel catalysts, primarily for the conversion of CO₂ to synthesis gases.

In the CARE-O-SENE and GreenQUEST projects, the Institute of Catalysis is collaborating closely with teams at HZB and other partners. CARE-O-SENE focuses on the synthesis of sustainable aviation fuels from CO₂, while GreenQUEST is looking for a synthetic alternative to LPG, both for industrial applications and as a fuel for cooking stoves in African households, providing an alternative to biomass.