Competence Centre for Catalysis
- a new environment for integrated
industry-university research in Göteborg
Bengt Kasemo and Sten Ljungström
Competence Centre for Catalysis
Chalmers University of Technology
Göteborg Sweden
Reprinted from
Proceedings
of the Sixth International Conference
on Management of Technology - MOT 97
June 25-28,1997
Chalmers University of Technology
Göteborg, Sweden
IAMOT/MOT 97 - Paper No. 167, p 920-932
With heterogeneous catalysis
new and energy efficient chemical
reaction pathways become possible through the presence of a
catalyst.
Moreover, the development of
new catalytic techniques can provide feasible ways to-reduce the
noxious emissions from vehicles,
industries and power and heating
plants, thus contributing to the
improvement of the environmental situation.
C O M P E T E N C E CENTRE FOR CATALYSIS
(Kompetenscentrum Katalys- KCK) is an
independent R&D organization within
Chalmers University of Technology with
its centre of gravity in the departments of
Applied Physics, Engineering Chemistry
and Chemical Reaction Engineering.
The centre is operated by a chief executive and a board composed of members
primarily from industry and university.
C o m p e t e n c e C e n t r e for Catalysis - a n e w e n v i r o n m e n t for
integrated i n d u s t r y - university research i n G ö t e b o r g
Bengt Kasemo and Sten Ljungström
Competence Centre for Catalysis
Chalmers University of Technology
Göteborg, Sweden
ABSTRACT
Executive leader
Sten Ljungström, Ph.D.
Chalmers University of Technology
Board
Proj. Manager Göran Wirmark, Chairman
AB Volvo
Professor Bengt Kasemo, V. Chairman
Dept. of Applied Physics at Chalmers University
of Technology and Göteborg University
R&D Manager Ola Augustsson
The Swedish government has through NUTEK - The Swedish National
Board for Industrial and Technical Development - established a number of
Competence Centres in areas of long-term importance for Sweden, where
university research as well as joint industry - university research can be
performed. The Competence Centre for Catalysis (Kompetenscentrum
Katalys - KCK) has its centre of gravity in the departments of Applied
Physics, Chemical Reaction Engineering and Engineering Chemistry. A
research program is executed together with the six industries AB Volvo,
Saab Automobile AB, Svenska Emissionsteknik AB (affiliated company to
Johnson Matthey in Great Britain), ABB Fläkt Industri AB, Perstorp AB and
AB Svensk Bilprovning.
Perstorp Catalysis
Professor Bengt Andersson
Dept. of Chemical Reaction Engineering
at Chalmers University of Technology
V. President Stig-Göran Larsson
Saab Automobile AB
Professor Jan-Erik Otterstedt
NUTEK
INDUSTRY
Dept. of Engineering Chemistry
at Chalmers University of Technology
Research Consultant Gudmund Smedler
Svenska Emissionsteknik AB
Chief Engineer Mats Wallin
AB Svensk Bilprovning
A number of Competence Centres has been
establishedin areas of long-term importance
for Swedish industries. The purpose is to
maintain concentrated cross-diciplinary
research pools which industries can
actively take part in and benefit from.
Industrial partners
AB Volvo
Saab Automobile AB
Svenska Emissionsteknik AB
ABB Fläkt Industri AB
Perstorp AB
AB Svensk Bilprovning
The overall aim of KCK is to contribute to creating a better environment by
using catalytic techniques. The R&D program is focused on three major
areas: 1) Catalytic reduction of emissions from vehicles. 2) Catalytic
reduction of emissions from industries. 3) Catalytic combustion e.g. for
power and heat generation.
The present paper describes experiences from the planning start up and first
two years of activity of KCK, with special emphasis on how the academic
and industrial cultures can be merged into a truly crossdisciplinary
cooperating team. Important measures to obtain the latter have been: (i) To
have active industry involvement in the early planning of the centre, (ii) To
have an active set of both industry and academic Board members, (iii) To
create an own identity of the centre and a crew of scientists and graduate
students who identify with the centre, (iv) To perform the research in the
infrastructure provided by the department and industry laboratories, (v) To
have a full time Director with executive power and full support from the
Board.
»20
Introduction
To find an effective and mutually rewarding way of university - industry
interactions, has been a challenge in the industrialized nations over several
decades. It has occupied the minds of politicians, corporate executives and
academicians, partly for the same reasons but often with different
motivations. The tendencies have been similar in all the western world
countries, but in details and pace there are large individual differences.
In the present paper we first give a short historical outlook on the
development in Sweden in this area, and then focus on a recent specific
example of a research centre, aimed at building a bridge between the
involved university and industries. The historical perspective is restricted
to aspects that provide a necessary background for our specific topic.
Brief historical perspective
The modem Swedish research policy was established in the 50-ies by former
prime minister Tage Erlander, during his time as responsible minister of
education and research. A strong motivation was to speed up' the knowledge
process as a means for economic growth and wealth, including a low level
of unemployment. The basic thinking, supported by the government, the
parliament, and the labour unions was that a strong coupling between the
academic research and industry R&D should promote industrial growth and
well being for the society.
To implement and evaluate this basic idea turned out to be a major
challenge with many obstacles, as politicians and research policy makers
have learned the hard way, in all the industrial countries world wide [1-4].
A large number of studies have tried to identify the reasons for these
difficulties. The latter include purely cultural aspects - the industrial world
and academia are very different cultures - and difference in primary goals.
For example, the universities have a major mission to produce high quality
education and to produce scientific results that has impact at the
international research frontier. These goals for the university are, at best,
means for the industry where profit on investment is a primary goal. And
so on.
Yet, there are opportunities for collaboration - it is a matter of finding the
right topics, means and organization, and establishing the right attitudes.
In Sweden a number of attempts have been made at the governmental and
governmental agency levels to develop a new infrastructure for university industry collaboration. The prime actors have been NUTEK (The Swedish
National Board for Industrial and Technical Development) formerly STU
(Swedish National Board for Technical Development)) and the universities.
STU has since the beginning of the 70-ies launched a number of more or less
successful programs. The most interesting aspect, in the present context, is
921
the basic approach taken. Initially the programs consisted of fairly small and
loosely connected projects in a "project basket" (a "frame" program) around
a common theme or area of technological importance [5].
At the end of the 80-ies it was realized that more focused and more strongly
"glued" together programs were needed. In 1990 eleven so called materials
science consortia were started [6]. Each consortium had multiple goals,
namely, excellence in science, graduate training, cross-disciplinarity, and
active industrial interaction, with funding from industry. The consortia
leaders were given a large freedom to use a frame-budget to fulfil these
goals. The concept turned out very successful, as reflected in three
consecutive, very positive, international evaluations [7a-c]. Important
components for the success were (i) a sufficiently large critical mass in terms
of budget and people involved, (ii) clear targets, and (iii) freedom to use the
allocated resources optimally towards the formulated goals. These consortia
are currently running and developing very positively.
A few years after the materials consortia were launched, and partly based on
the experience from them, NUTEK presented a new concept called
Competence Centres (CC) [8]. In some sense they are similar to the US ERCs
[9a] or the British Interdisciplinary Research Centres (TRC's) [9b] but there are
some important differences. The major new ingredient compared to the
consortia was that contracted, active industrial involvement was a
requirement from the outset. (In the consortia industrial involvement was
a long term goal that could be implemented successively).
In the CCs it was required (i) that the R&D area chosen had an obvious long
term importance for and active demand from Swedish industry, (ii) that
several industries joined the Competence Centres from the outset with own
input of cash flow and soft money (personnel, equipment, etc), (iii) that
several research groups or departments at the university joined to establish
a cross disciplinary network and (iv) that the scientific and technological
platform was internationally competitive. More than 90% of the originally
planned 30 CCs have been launched in the past 1 1 / 2 year.
In the present article we describe experiences from the planning, start up,
and first 1 1 / 2 years running of one of these CCs called Competence Centre
for Catalysis, abbreviated KCK (because of the initials in the Swedish name
(Kompetenscentrum Katalys).
2. Competence Centre for Catalysis - Background and focus. The planning stage.
Chalmers University of Technology (CTH) has three departments with
major research efforts in the area of heterogeneous catalysis; the
Engineering Chemistry, Chemical Reaction Engineering and Applied
Physics departments. There were a quite large number of potential
industrial partners to consider, of which several had ongoing or previous
collaborations with the three departments.
It was soon obvious that one single area, centred on heterogeneous catalysis,
was meeting the demands of a CC better than any other area, namely
catalytic exhaust cleaning for road vehicles. The reasons were (i) the
presence of two car manufacturers in or close to Göteborg (AB Volvo, and
Saab Automobile AB), (ii) a local R&D subsidiary, Svenska Emissionsteknik
AB, of the Johnson Matthey Co (a major manufacturer of catalysts for
exhaust cleaning), and (iii) the three departments, mentioned above, which
all had strong research activities in heterogeneous catalysis, including
catalysis for emission cleaning.
The vehicle exhaust cleaning was judged as a very important area for
Sweden. It also provided important development potential for other related
areas, especially catalytic cleaning of exhausts from stationary combustion
furnaces and from industrial processes, such as VOC-cleaning (VOC =
volatile organic compounds). In the latter areas two strong partners were
identified, namely, ABB Fläkt Industri AB (a subsidiary of Asea Brown
Bovery) and the chemical industry Perstorp AB.
The five industries mentioned above constituted the manufacturing
industrial partners of KCK. They were complemented by a sixth partner,
AB Svensk Bilprovning, a govemmentally owned company reviewing the
legislative, regulatory and control matters for road vehicle emission.
KCK was formed around the above mentioned three departments and six
industries. The three planned activity areas of KCK were:
•
•
•
Catalytic emission cleaning from vehicles (50%)
Catalytic cleaning of emissions from industrial processes (25%)
Catalytic combustion (25%)
The figures in parenthesis were the initially planned activity volumes. As it
turned out the real numbers rather became 80%, 20% and 0% for the first
two years, reflecting the engagement of the respective industries (catalytic
combustion was of potential interest for a Volvo subsidiary, Volvo Aero
AB, and another ABB subsidiary ABB-Stal, but real activity was postponed
until after July 1,1997 due to lack of real active engagements from these
industries).
KCK shall have a high (qualitative and quantitative) scientific
production.
KCK shall be such an attractive partner for industries that they want
to participate in KCK activities with their own resources.
KCK shall be an effective organization for graduate student training.
KCK shall effectively contribute to the knowledge transfer to industry
and be professional in execution of joint projects with industry.
3. The initial planning stage and selection procedure for CCs
After the first proposals for CCs were submitted in September 1993, NUTEK
decided to choose 60 candidates out of 326 proposals for further planning.
KCK was chosen as one of these candidates in November 1993, much thanks
to the support from AB Volvo and other industries. A planning grant was
allocated. A detailed second proposal was formulated and submitted in
February 1994. All the 117* second proposals were competing for a
maximum of 30 CCs which would be funded.
When the second KCK proposal was also approved in June 1994, again
significantly influenced by the industry support, the final planning stage was
started in January 1995. Detailed R&D plans and a detailed workplan and
budget had to be formulated and contracts had to be written and signed
between the partners, regulating the responsibilities and commitments. The
partners were the involved industries, the university (CTH), and NUTEK.
For this work an executive person - tentatively the director of the upcoming
KCK - was hired from January 1,1995 to perform and coordinate this work.
He was chosen out of a set of several interviewed candidates and is one of
the authors of this article (Sten Ljungström). An interim board of KCK was
established, representing the three departments and five of the partner
industries. This work was finalized in May 1995 and the final contract was
signed at NUTEK in Stockholm on June 8,1995. Effectively KCK was then
started July 1,1995.
It should be mentioned that the six partner industries were chosen from an
initial set of about 20 industries (Fig. 1). The final choice was primarily
determined by how much the industries committed themselves to the
program; but to some extent also by the strategic focusing of the program.
Vision, objectives etc were briefly the following:
•
KCK shall become one of the prime research centres in the world in
catalytic emission cleaning.
923
" In addition to the 60 invited proposals receiving
submitted from different teams.
were
4. Experiences from the planning stage
4.1 Experiences from the first planning stage
In the initial inventory of interested and potential partner companies in
KCK a large number (Fig. 1) of positive responses were obtained (= 20). A
one day meeting was organized where the general idea was presented, and
the special idea with KCK was outlined. Representatives were attending
from most of the industries. The basic attitude was very positive, but some
negative comments were made, especially regarding the risk that the large
companies might be too dominating. The major industries - in particular
AB Volvo and Svenska Enussionsteknik AB - were very active and
supportive.
is the infrastructure of laboratories, equipment, supervision etc, for the
graduate students and research associates.
The regulation of who has the right to the obtained results in the projects
and patents etc caused extended discussions, partly due to the existing
principle at Swedish universities that the academic individual has all rights
to his/her results and the university has none. After several negotiations
the following was contracted: All project results obtained through the direct
KCK activities (projects, etc.) should be accessible free of charge to all
participants within the centre. Further, each member company has an
option to acquire a project result gained by a university researcher within
KCK, but not to give sublicenses. The university researcher should receive
the same compensation as an industry employee would get. Of course some
secrecy agreements and publication restrictions had to be settled too.
4.2 Experiences from the second planning stage
When the KCK concept had passed the first selection round a full proposal
had to be written. It should contain specific information about the industries
input in cash and "soft" money (manpower, access to laboratories etc). This
turned out to be an obstacle for most of the interested industries. A clear
reluctance to commit real resources was experienced. In some cases it was
probably due to the focus pf the program, in others a general uncertainty was
felt about what the actual benefit would be of joining KCK. Maybe we - the
planners - were not very good at selling.our idea, but we also noticed a lack
of appreciation of the knowledge and competence base that was offered;
many industries were more interested in specific problem-solving than in
the knowledge base as such, except among the industries that finally joined
KCK.
4.3 Experiences from the final contract writing and final program
formulation stage.
After KCK had been finally approved, i.e. after the selection second round, a
formal contract had to be written and signed. It should contain a specific
final research program and a budget. The contract should also regulate and
quantify the financial and other matters (e.g. intellectual property rights).
The partners in the contract signing were the involved industries, the
university (CTH) and NUTEK Economically the industries and the
university had to match (with equal amounts) the 6 MSEK that NUTEK
aimed at investing for the first two years, i.e. the total volume of the
program would be 9 MSEK/year for the first two years.
Eventually an agreement was reached. The industries input amounted to 1.8
MSEK cash and 4.2 MSEK soft money (i.e. in total 6 MSEK). The university
input were all "soft" money and based on a cost estimate where e.g. a
graduate student annual cost was calculated to be 850 KSEK and a research
associate cost to 950 KSEK/year. KCK pays only half of these sums to the
university, who covers the second half. The university "soft" money input
925
5. The start up of KCK
Already during the 2nd planning stage a few research areas were identified
as more important than others. By a matrix-approach (Fig. 2), where
industrial demands and basic phenomena constituted the two "axes", it was
obvious that NO x cleaning and cold start emissions, respectively, were the
major areas of interest to the vehicle and catalyst manufactures. Low
temperature catalytic activity, which is- closely related to cold start emissions,
was also of interest for the VOC cleaning area. NO x cleaning was a major
interest also in stationary combustion exhaust cleaning.
Thus KCK's research was immediately concentrated on these two major
projects. (Some minor exploratory projects were also started, but they were
also potentially important for the major projects). To execute these projects,
six graduate students and two PhD's at the assistant professor level were
recruited during the period November 1995 to January 1996. These eight
persons constituted the core crew of KCK together with the director and two
project leaders, taken from two of the industries~(one for the NO x project
and one for the low temperature project). They were placed in a common
office area, but the projects were executed in the infrastructure represented
by the three participating departments and to some extent in the industrial
laboratories. When KCK organized a formal inauguration on November 28,
1995, the crew was already in operation and the projects running.
6. Experience from the start up procedure
Immediately after the contract was signed, a Board of KCK was established
(the same as the interim board). It was decided that KCK should be
implemented following the goals in the original proposal and taking into
account some of the most important conclusions from the planning stage.
The latter were:
92S
A. It was important to create an own identity of KCK. Since the actual
research activity was going to be executed within the laboratories of the
partner departments and industries there was a risk that the activity
segregated into non-communicating department "islands". Some important
practical actions were; (i) to quickly establish a KCK office with an own
address, telephone, fax number etc. (ii) To establish a cluster of offices where
the (small) KCK personal could sit together, (iii) To print a leaflet describing
KCK's mission and organization, (iv) To hold an inauguration seminar and
ceremony, (v) Six graduate students and two research associates were
recruited through open announcement. These eight people came to
constitute - together with the director - the nucleus of KCK. (vi) To hold a
course organized by KCK, for personnel active in KCK.
B. It was considered important to establish a vertical integration from basic
research to applicatiori(s) (See next point).
C. It was necessary to focus the research activity in a few projects in order to
obtain critical masses in them and to achieve active crossdisciplinary
research. This was regarded important in order to avoid spreading the
activity too thin over many projects and to avoid segregation into "islands".
It was decided to focus the available resources on two major projects. They
were easily identified from the inventory (Fig. 2) that had been made during
the planning stage. These two areas were NOx-cleaning and low
temperature activity, respectively. These two projects were initiated with
roughly equal resources (5 manyears/year) with graduate students from all
departments in each project and with a project leader from industry for each
project.
Thus, the unconventional construction was made that industry project
leaders were leading projects in the university environment, executed
predominantly by graduate students and young research associates . In
parallel with these major projects some minor projects were started, which
were either of an exploratory nature or consisted of building up an
experimental infrastructure.
Through this approach, it was achieved that chemists, physicists and
industrial R&D personnel worked together and interacted on a daily —»
weekly basis, and basic and more applied aspects were integrated in the
projects. Of course this construction potentially created a conflict of interest
between the project goals on one side, and the graduate student training
goals and the department goals on the other. However, generally a
constructive balance was found.
7. The execution of the KCK mission during the first 11/2 years.
The present situation after 1 1 / 2 year is. a very dynamic centre, developing
very well and according to the set goals. In addition to what was described
above the following major actions have been taken to strengthen KCK:
927
(i) An International Advisory Board has been recently (Dec. 1996) appointed
(Dr Galen Fisher, Physical Chemistry Division, General Motors, Detroit,
Prof. Michael Bowker, University of Reading, England, Dr Paul Zelenka,
AVL, Austria). The mission of the Advisory board is to advice the KCK
Board on directions, content and execution of KCK activities and to promote
the establishment of international contacts.
(ii) A course in heterogeneous catalysis - Catalytic Emission Cleaning - has
been established and given once, with participation of all the graduate
students.
(iii) Recruitment is ongoing (interviews are just made in Jan-Feb 1997) to
employ a "Gate keeper" with the specific responsibility to work in the
industry - university interface. Examples of duties are e.g. to present the
KCK idea to potential new partners, to execute bilateral industry projects, to
work with the planning and execution of EC projects etc.
8. Experiences from the first 11/2 years operation of KCK
One experience is that although the work was focused in two projects, there
was considerable inertia to become productive in the projects. New
inexperienced graduate students had to be trained and the experimental
infrastructure had to be complemented, and so on. Yet the approach is still
judged the best possible. KCK no doubt has created an own identity that goes
beyond or is even stronger than the department-related identity. The work
is really crossdisciplinary; students from different disciplines interact daily.
The work in the KCK board is extremely constructive with major inputs
from the industry members. The strategic discussions about future, new
areas is also very constructive and promising. On the negative side it is
noted that not all the industry partners are as strongly engaged in the
program execution as one would wish. The work to identify new potential
industrial partners is idling, but is not urgent. There are some difference in
opinions about the university contributions.
9. Discussion and conclusions
One of the most important conclusions is that the involvement of active
industrial partners already in the initial planning and start up stages, is a
very efficient, sometimes maybe even necessary, way of getting industry
engaged in the execution of the research program. This and the required
contracted input from industry is probably the major new ingredient of
importance compared to the Materials Consortia discussed earlier. The
active early participation of the industry not only promotes their later
participation but also seems to catalyze the
interdepartmental/interdisciplinary contacts within the university.
928
A second major conclusion regards the importance of creating an identity
and critical mass of the CC through three important actions:
(i)
Firstly by employing a director who is not originally associated with
one of the departments, and from day one is instructed to create a KCK of its
own identity. Equally important is that he is given the equivalent executive
power as a CEO, from the KCK board.
(iii) Secondly by choosing a majority of industrial members for the Board
and two industry persons as project leaders an identification of the
industrial partners with KCK was achieved.
collaboration with the CC in combustion engine technology at Chalmers is
foreseen. Another likely expansion is participation and coordination of EC
programs and other international networks. A challenge is to establish an
active program for foreign post-docs and internationally renowned senior
scientists.
It is also foreseen that spinn-off effects in the form of patentable results will
emerge. An efficient scheme to identify and take care of such discoveries
need to be developed.
(ii)
Thirdly by recruitment of new graduate students and young PhD's
who are also from day one associated primarily with KCK, so that a nucleus
of a CC crew is established.
References
The importance of (i) - (iii) should not be underestimated. They create an
identity and a critical mass that "flies" on its own wings, while the
department and their professors constitute the necessary infrastructure,
support and link to the university. The strong influence from industry
could potentially create a conflict between the project goals and the
educational and academic goals. So far this has not turned out to be a serious
problem. Rather the benefit of a strong engagement from industry is judged
to more than outweigh such potential negative effects. The industrial
representatives are handling this balance problem very well, and respect the
educational /academic dimensions and needs. Of course, this is strongly
related to the individuals. There is no guarantee that it works so well
generally.
2.
A second potential problem due to the strong engagement of the industrial
partners in the execution of the program, and their majority representation
in the KCK board, is a possible unwillingness to incorporate new industrial
partners. So far no such problem has been encountered, but generally it
could constitute a problem in the future.
6.
1.
3.
4.
5.
7a.
7b.
10. Future perspective
The prediction for the next 2-3 years is that KCK will grow considerably and
open up a few new activity areas, probably in catalytic combustion and
potentially in photocatalysis and/or in the sensor area and/or in the area of
cleaning indoor air, (odour cleaning etc) in industries, public buildings or
private houses. The infrastructure of experimental facilities will strengthen,
and the interactive process between departments internally and between the
university and industry will expand. More work will be performed in the
industry laboratories by graduate students. The professionality of project
leaders for joint university-industry projects will increase though training
of PhD's and senior personnel. The activity of KCK is likely to expand, by
increasing the number of .industrial and academic partners. More active
929
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930
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PerslorpAB
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Elof Hansson
ADB Stat AD
ABB Ftatl Industri AB
AB8Föfci Marine AB
SAAB Automobile AB
SAABSc»ni»AB
Svensk Bilprovning AB
Sandvik Sleel AB
SAKAB
Sydkraft AB
Svenskt Gatfekniski Center
Musqvama Engine Research*
i
•
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Figure 2.
Figure 1.
Specification of the areas of interest from the companies.
Ca 20 companies were interested and potential partners in the
initial inventory.
931
932
The objective of the Competence Centre for
Catalysis (KCK) is to become an internationally
recognized research organization
within the academic and industrial community,
and one of the leading centres in the world for
research, education and technical development
in catalytic emission reduction and catalytic
combustion.
By combining academic research at the international research frontier with execution of
collaborative - and externally driven - projects
with industry, KCK is actively participating in
the worldwide efforts to create a better environment.
By educating licentiates, doctors and postdocs, KCK provides industry as well as academia and governmental agencies with a unique
and attractive competence.
Chalmers University of Technology
S-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Phone +46 31 772 31 65 Telefax +46 31 772 31 34
E-mail ljung@fy.chalmers.se