Research
The Rhineland region is a region in transition – away from the climate-damaging use of lignite and towards sustainable value chains. Structural change is one of the central social challenges, not only for the Rhineland lignite region, but for the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia. Forschungszentrum Jülich is actively helping to shape this process. With scientific excellence, it contributes to developing innovations and products, attracting new cooperation partners to the region and maintaining high-quality jobs as well as generating new jobs. The Rhineland region is to become a model for new economic activity in this way. Funded by an immediate action programme of the Federal Government and together with regional partners from business, science and civil society, projects in information technology, energy technology and the bioeconomy are being developed and implemented.
The project “Neuro-inspired artificial intelligence technologies for the electronics of the future” (NEUROTEC) is about making computers more energy-efficient. Artificial intelligence, in particular, consumes a lot of energy for machine learning, far more than our brain does. Neuromorphic or brain-inspired computer hardware aims to reduce energy demand.
In 2020, many interim goals were achieved: for example, a facility was built for the production of so-called memristors, which are key components of the new type of hardware. Computer simulations provided models for the behaviour of the memristive elements. These can now be used for circuit design. A first such circuit has been given to the industry as a production order. The Rhineland region is thus gaining in its image as a location for neuromorphic technologies.
The development of regional bioeconomies is a key prerequisite for the transformation towards a bio-based economy (see p. 20 “Future Field Bioeconomy”). This is how it was formulated in November 2020 at the third “Global Bioeconomy Summit”. The concept was developed in the model region BioökonomieREVIER Rheinland.
On behalf of the Jülich BioökonomieREVIER coordination office, Prognos AG has investigated the importance of the agricultural and food industry for the bioeconomy in the Rhineland region. The study found, among other things: every job in the agriculture and food sector provides 0.6 additional jobs. The biomass potential – from organic waste and straw to beet slices – amounts to about 1.17 million tonnes per year. In combination with the region’s excellent research infrastructure, this could make important contributions to sustainable value chain systems, for example with biorefinery processes.
The Rhineland region is to become a demonstration region for sustainable industrial production processes that use climate-damaging carbon dioxide as a raw material. In February 2020, at a fireside chat with mayors and district councillors from the municipalities affected by the lignite phase-out, Prof. Rüdiger Eichel explained how this can be achieved. He coordinates the project “Incubator for Sustainable Electrochemical Value Chains” (iNEW 2.0) at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
In new material conversion processes, hydrogen, basic chemicals and fuels – for the energy and chemical sectors as well as for transport and traffic – could be produced from CO2 using sustainably generated electricity. The open information platform iNEW 2.0 brings together developers and users as part of the overarching project “Accelerator Sustainable Power-to-X Value Chains” (ANABEL) in order for the new technologies to contribute to the success of structural change as soon as possible.
Forschungszentrum Jülich is currently developing a concept for a new Helmholtz Cluster in close cooperation with the federal and state governments: the aim is to make the Rhineland region an innovation and demonstration region for a sustainable hydrogen economy that is compatible with the infrastructure. In addition, state-of-the-art methods from, for example, artificial intelligence and cognitive data analysis could be made available to regional partners from business and science.
The infrastructure platform “ER-C 2.0”, for instance, is intended to help companies push forward new technologies for the development of innovative materials. Establishing an innovation centre for applied quantum technologies could bring science and business together in this research and development area. A new transfer and conference centre could become a place of dialogue for all players of structural change.
PHOTOS: Forschungszentrum Jülich/Sascha Kreklau
