Carbon X Prize finalist Professor Sebastian C Peter on a 2-day visit to the University

Team 'Breathe', led by Sebastian C Peter, has won a share of the $5 million milestone prize in the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE; a four-and-a-half-year global competition, which challenges teams to transform the way the world addresses carbon dioxide emissions through breakthrough circular carbon technologies that convert emissions from power plants into useful and valuable products. Team Breathe gained their place in the final for producing methanol, a common fuel and petrochemical feedstock, using a novel catalyst.

Clean Carbon member, Dr Denis Kramer hosted Sebastian's visit, on 28 and 29 March, which provided opportunities for several academic colleagues to meet and have discussions with him. A highlight of the visit was his talk on Wednesday 28th March in Building 27/2003, entitled: 'Non-Pt based Nanoparticles as Low Cost, Highly Efficient and Robust Catalysts Alternative to Pt in Fuel Cell Applications'. Sebastian talked about his work, which encompasses a range of subjects including electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction/evolution and CO₂ reduction, electrochemical supercapacitors, and hyrid materials.

Sebastian is based in the New Chemistry Unit at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Jakkur, Bangalore where he leads a 20-strong research group.