Review of the 18th symposium...

The demand for mobility, transport and energy supply is constantly increasing worldwide. What do sustainable concepts for this look like and what solutions already exist? This question was the focus of the symposium for "Sustainability in Mobility, Transport and Energy Generation" on September 23 and 24, 2021 at the Graz Congress. The essential key technologies for this are to be found in the area of future fuels (hydrogen, e-fuels, etc.), new and further developed engine and exhaust gas aftertreatment concepts, and the electrification of drives. An extremely high level of system integration, digitalization and simulation will enable and accompany the path to these new solutions.

The conference was held in a hybrid format for the first time. In addition to the nearly 200 participants on site, 30 interested parties took the opportunity to follow the congress via WebexEvents. In more than 40 presentations by international experts, new approaches and already implemented concepts for solving these global challenges were explained and subsequently discussed. Different drive concepts based on combustion engines, fuel cells, hybrid and battery electric systems will be used for this purpose in the future. The main goal and at the same time the biggest challenge for their development is environmental compatibility and sustainability. For internal combustion engines, which are used in many cases and in some applications with high energy requirements practically exclusively, the focus is on further reducing pollutant emissions to a "zero impact" level and achieving extremely ambitious CO2 target values.

As is tradition, a guided tour of the Institute of Internal Combustion Engines and Thermodynamics (IVT) and the Large Engine Competence Center (LEC), the two organizers of this conference, took place again this year on the day before the event.

Our subsequent "get-together" at the Graz Congress started with the award ceremony of the CIMAC CASCADES Seminar, which offers young engineers the opportunity to meet, exchange ideas and network with leading industry experts. The goal of this seminar is to inspire and encourage students and young engineers to pursue careers in engineering.

This year, our evening event also had a very special theme: The Institute for Combustion Engines and Thermodynamics (IVT) was able to celebrate its 100th anniversary in style with an evening event at the Old University with the participants of our conference, albeit with a limited number of attendees.

The program can be downloaded here.