From their base halfway across the globe in Singapore, Cambridge researchers are working with colleagues from around the world to reduce carbon emissions in industry. For a chemical engineer, Jurong Island is a kind of paradise. The artificial island, built upon seven smaller islands off the Singapore mainland in the 1980s and 1990s, is now home to nearly 100 global petroleum, petrochemical and speciality chemical companies, indicating Singapore’s status as a global crossroads.
It has become the centre of Singapore’s efforts to cut its emissions intensity by 36% (compared with 2005 levels) by 2030.
Professor Markus Kraft is Director of the Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore (CARES), a wholly owned subsidiary of the University based at Singapore’s Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE).
The team in Singapore is made up of researchers from Cambridge, local universities and other institutions. Its unique setting, combined with a diverse membership that ranges from PhD students to professors, has enabled CARES, which was established in 2013, to be involved in several research and industry collaborations. The most recent, with fellow CREATE partners, the University of California, Berkeley, the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University, will develop new ways to transform industrial CO2 emissions into compounds that are useful in the chemical industry supply chain.
The overall goal of the researchers based at CARES is to reduce industrial carbon emissions and improve sustainability through the development of cleaner fuels, carbon capture and efficiency improvements in industrial processes.
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Image credit: William Cho