Vojtech Konderla
Background
Coming from the Czech Republic, I completed BSs program at UCT in Prague. Later, I relocated to the Netherlands and obtained an MSc degree in chemical engineering from TU Delft. I did an internship at Shell where we looked into separating CO2 from syngas. In my master's thesis, I focused on modeling CO2 electrolyzer and investigated how its performance changes when scaled up. Having studies finished, I then worked at the university for one year as a research engineer on seawater CO2 capture. Since I liked the research position, I finally joined the Transport Phenomena group as PhD candidate.
Research
Deploying renewable energy sources and reducing CO2 emissions will not bring us to net zero carbon emissions. To achieve this goal, we need negative CO2 emissions. In my research, I am focusing on direct air capture. CO2 is captured in an alkaline solution and regenerated using bipolar membrane electrodialysis. I aim to investigate the scale-up limitations and improve the current state of the art. Having CO2 captured, this CO2 needs to be pressurized and stored away from the atmosphere. Part of my research is also devoted to tackling CO2 compression.
