Vojtěch 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.