On May 5-6th 2022, we organised an event at the University Foundation in Brussels, to celebrate together the Chair Jaumotte awarded to Prof. Heinz Pitsch by the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium and Université libre de Bruxelles.
Baron André Jaumotte was an emblematic figure of the École Polytechnique de Bruxelles, where he graduated and pursued his entire scientific career becoming Rector and Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was also a key personality of the Royal Academy of Belgium. He was first elected correspondent by the Science Class in 1966, member in 1983, and Director of this Class in 1985 before joining the Technology and Society Class in 2009, when the latter was created.
Baron André Jaumotte actively supported throughout his career young researchers in the development of new ideas and technologies and promoted multidisciplinarity. In this spirit, the Jaumotte-Demoulin Foundation established, in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, an André Jaumotte Chair at the Royal Academy of Belgium, in partnership with the École Polytechnique de Bruxelles and Université libre de Bruxelles. Prof. Heinz Pitsch has been the first recipient of this Chair.
Professor Heinz Pitsch is Director of the Institute for Combustion Technology (ITV) at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. Before that, he has been Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research has been pioneering in turbulent combustion science, and this has been recognised by prestigious awards and scholarships, notably a NSF Career Award and two ERC Advanced Grants.
Prof. Pitsch spent a month in Belgium between November 2021 and May 2022. During this time, he delivered four conferences at Collège Belgique, the institution for teaching and dissemination of the Royal Academy of Sciences. He had the possibility to interact with many laboratories in Belgium, creating links that will hopefully last in time, as in the hopes of this Chair.
The Chair was sponsored by Alessandro Parente, Professor at the Aero-Thermo-Mechanics Department of École Polytechnique de Bruxelles, where Prof. Pitsch was hosted during his stay. The chair was supported by several laboratories in Belgium working in the broad field of research of reacting flows: Bart Merci and Kevin Van Geem at Gent University, Francesco Contino, Véronique Dias and Hervé Jeanmart at Université catholique de Louvain, Koen Hillewart and Vincent Terrapon at Université de Liège, Laurent Bricteaux and Ward De Paepe at Université de Mons, Axel Coussement, Frederic Debaste, Patrick Hendrick and Benoit Scheid at Université libre de Bruxelles, Thierry Magin and Jeroen van Beeck at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics.
The event organised to celebrate Chair focused on the Role of renewable synthetic fuels and combustion technologies in the energy transition. It gathered leading experts from industry and academia to discuss the challenges and opportunities offered by synthetic fuels like hydrogen in the decarbonisation journey towards the net zero emission targets. The list of distinguished speakers included (in alphabetical order): Prof. Antonio Attili, Prof. Abhishek Khetan, Prof. Liming Cai, Prof. Perrine Pepiot, Prof. Bassam Dally, Prof. Mani Sarathy, Prof. Tiziano Faravelli, Dr. Werner Willems.
The program and presentations from the event are available here.
Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to the support of the Jaumotte Demoulin Foundation, the perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Professor Didier Viviers, the members of the technology and Society class, chaired by Mr. Luc Chefneux, and the Academy research and partnership manager, Mr. Nicolas Simon, who made this event possible.