PUC-Rio interdepartmental program on sustainable energy

• Grant number: 25/03709-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2030
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Mechanical Engineering - Transport Phenomena
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Menezes de Oliveira
• Grantee: Rafael Menezes de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Centro Técnico Científico (CTC). Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
• City of the host institution: Rio de Janeiro
• Principal investigators: Alan Kubrusly ; Anderson Pereira ; Angela Ourivio Nieckele ; Arthur Martins Barbosa Braga ; Fernanda Araujo Baião ; Fernando Luiz Cyrino Oliveira ; Florian Alain Yannick Pradelle ; Guilherme Monteiro Torelly ; Jean Pierre von der Weid ; Marco Antonio Meggiolaro ; Monica Feijo Naccache ; PAULO ROBERTO DE SOUZA MENDES ; Rafael Martinelli Pinto ; Renato Bichara Vieira ; Rodrigo Caiado de Lamare ; Silvio Hamacher
• Associated researchers: Igor Braga de Paula ; José Tavares Araruna Júnior

Abstract

The Technical-Scientific Center (CTC) at PUC-Rio has been collaborating with the oil and energy industry since the 1980s and has been involved in the creation of the PRH-ANP since its inception in 1999. Since then, the PUC-Rio Interdepartmental Program has trained a total of 160 undergraduate, master's and doctoral scholarship holders by 2015. In addition, 25 scholarship holders have been awarded in the most recent edition. The number of master's dissertations and doctoral theses written on topics with industrial applications is even higher, exceeding 250. The volume of resources that the university allocates from PD&I projects sponsored by companies is growing, having exceeded R$1 billion in the last 5 years. This demonstrates the experience of PUC-Rio's CTC in training human resources focused on science, technology and innovation. To prepare them for the market, we expose students to practical experiences in various design disciplines and to the use of very well-equipped laboratories.In this joint proposal between the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Electrical Engineering of the CTC of PUC-Rio, undergraduate and graduate students from these Departments who study Mechanical, Production, Civil, Environmental, Electrical, and Computer Engineering, or Control and Automation will have a greater incentive and greater attractiveness to seek PRH-ANP scholarships. With greater attractiveness, we aim to obtain a higher occupancy rate of scholarships and use them to continue and improve the excellence in the training of these students, offering complementary training that enables them to face the challenges of the oil and energy sector, which has a growing diversification of different sources, including hydrogen, wind, solar, battery storage, in addition to new exploration and production challenges associated with both the pre-salt and the equatorial margin.The basic and professional training of students receiving scholarships under this new program will be complemented by courses in the oil and energy sector. The applied research of these students may take place in one of the research laboratories with R&D funding from ANP, which brings the students' academic training closer to market interests.Students from other CTC courses who are willing to take the complementary courses and write their final papers, dissertations or theses on topics applied to the industry may also benefit from scholarships under this PRH-ANP program. The research developed will have applications in various segments, including, but not limited to, the following topics: Exploration and production, Digital Transformation, Biofuels, Hydrogen, Cementing, Transportation, Advanced Recovery, Drilling fluids, Flow assurance, Decarbonization and Geological capture and storage. Regarding the selection criteria for scholarship recipients, in the case of undergraduate students, selection will be based on academic performance and criteria determined by the courses' Structuring Teaching Centers. The criteria already established by the master's and doctoral programs of the CTC at PUC-Rio will be used to select postgraduate scholarship holders. (AU)