ISIC leads the Energypolis project at EPFL Valais Wallis

The EPFL Valais Wallis project was developed with the Council of State of the Canton Valais and EPFL. The project’s vision is to create a “shared campus” between EPFL and the HES-SO Valais Wallis. The campus, now operating in Sion, is home to Energypolis, a flagship research project that brings together EPFL, the HES-SO Valais Wallis, the Ark Foundation, and the Swiss Innovation Park in Western Switzerland (SIP West EPFL).

Energypolis combines training, basic research and applied research under a single banner, with a focus on renewable energy. Research will focus on hydroelectricity, green chemistry, biomass production from agricultural areas, carbon capture and processing and others. The scientific aspects of the project are directed by Professor Berend Smit (EPFL), a world-renowned expert in the field of carbon capture.

EPFL’s contribution to Energypolis is represented by several research labs from the School of Basic Sciences, and specifically the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering (ISIC). The first building of Energypolis opened on 14 December 2014; the campus has been abuzz ever since, with the first labs from ISIC moving in on March 2015. There are also plans for new startup companies of The Ark Foundation.

Six labs have moved to Sion from EPFL’s campus at Lausanne and have begun their respective research activities, concentrating on chemistry and chemical engineering for energy, sustainable chemistry and analytical chemistry. “I would like to thank the canton of Valais and the city of Sion for making all this possible, and for the very warm welcome our groups have received,” says Berend Smit. “It is impressive to see how we started with en empty building in March, and six months later we are operating at almost full capacity. I had assumed that we would have to try hard to convince PhD students and postdocs to come all the way to Sion. I was happy to be wrong: both PhD students and postdocs have been enormously attracted to the unique opportunity of building new labs.”

The ISIC labs currently at Sion are:

The Laboratory for Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry (LEPA), directed by Professor Hubert Girault. The lab is testing out a prototype facility for hydrogen storage and production in Martigny (Valais). Described as a “redox-flow battery demonstrator”, its main aim is to show the potential of such electrochemical storage systems to function as buffers for intermittent energy sourced from renewable sources, e.g. solar, wind etc. Operating since 2014, the facility at Martigny, the project represents a collaboration between LEPA, the District of Martigny, the Centre de recherches énergétiques et municipales (CREM) and the public-works institution Sinergy.

The Laboratory of Molecular Simulation (LSMO), directed by Professor Berend Smit. Building on Professor Smit’s enormous expertise, the lab will focus on the application and development of novel molecular simulation techniques with emphasis on energy-related applications, including methane storage, carbon capture, and other gas separation. As part of LSMO’s research efforts, Dr Kyriakos Stylianou is also setting up a high-throughput facility for the synthesis of nanoporous materials.

The Group for Molecular Engineering of Functional Materials (GMF), directed by Professor Mohammad Nazeeruddin. The lab is part of by the EPFL-Abengoa Research Center, which focuses on research and development of perovskite-based photovoltaics. The lab enjoys world-renowned expertise on perovskites – solid mineral pigments with promising photovoltaic properties that can absorb light and generate collectable electrical charge at cost-effective prices.

The Laboratory of Functional Inorganic Materials (LFIM), directed by Professor Wendy Queen. Having joined EPFL Valais Wallis in September 2015, Wendy Queen leads her new group into the search for new materials for gas separation. The research follows a two-pronged approach: First, to rationally design materials for targeted applications and control their crystallization, which is necessary to incorporate them into composites or to deposit them on surfaces. Second, to focus on assessing several aspects of nanoporous materials, including small molecule adsorption/separation and their conversion into other value-added chemicals.

The Laboratory of Materials for Renewable Energy (LMER), directed by Professor Andreas Züttel. Research focuses on the interaction of gases, especially hydrogen, with the surface and bulk of materials. This entails the study of interaction energy, the orientation of molecules on the surface of materials, the activation barriers, transition states, and intermediates that are formed through the reaction, mobility and arrangement of hydrogen in the bulk. The group’s is interested in metal hydrides and catalysts that can be used to reduce CO₂, a key process for developing new high energy-density materials for renewable energy storage.

The Laboratory of Nanochemistry for Energy (LNCE), directed by Professor Raffaella Buonsanti. The lab is researching ways of combining nanotechnology with sustainability. Specifically, the group will synthesize semiconductor and metal-oxide nanocrystals, and integrate them into energy devices. Buonsanti will also look at new ways to interface nanocrystals with building blocks of a different nature (i.e. polymers and porous materials). The work aims to open new possibilities for combining hybrid and multifunctional nanomaterials in catalytic processes, such as transforming solar energy into chemical energy.