The internationalisation of higher education has become a formidable force for change in the past decade. Having long outgrown its baby shoes of mere development cooperation, cross-border education today involves high-impact partnerships and collaborative research, often with competitive commercial outputs. The latest example of this is Stellenbosch University (SU) Engineering master's student Derwalt Erasmus, whose research during a student mobility exchange in Madrid, Spain, enhanced an existing innovation and generated a new one, both in the critical field of clean energy.
Derwalt embarked on a five-month Erasmus+ student mobility exchange offered by Alianza 4 Universidades (A4U) – a partnership between four major Spanish universities. The exchange took the form of a research collaboration with a renewable-energy expert at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) on the subject of Derwalt's master's thesis. Before leaving for Spain, the student had developed the SUNFlower, a device generating clean energy, for which a patent was filed through Innovus, SU's technology transfer company.
Working with his Spanish supervisor, Prof Alberto Sánchez-González, an expert in heliostat field modelling and development, Derwalt set about enhancing the effectiveness and technological readiness of the SUNflower. “This international mobility opportunity enabled further development of my invention," he explains. “In collaboration with Prof Sánchez-González, I was able to model the distribution of concentrated solar radiation applied on the surface of the device to inherently predict its performance and efficiency." Moreover, their findings in fine-tuning the SUNflower resulted in another invention, the Tadpole, a solar thermal device that serves as a new form of heat transfer.
Going forward, this collaboration will be reported on in a joint publication by SU, the University of Pretoria, UC3M and Erasmus+, as well as at the Solar Paces conference scheduled to take place in New Mexico later this year. Derwalt will also be fleshing out his innovations further through the SU-based international collaborative platform STERG (the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group), located in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering.
With relevant and valuable innovations such as these, it comes as no surprise that the Innovus faculty patent award for 2019 went to the Faculty of Engineering, who managed to secure a whopping 20 patents for the year. The award forms part of an annual celebration of researchers' achievements hosted by Innovus, who interacts between SU and industry, supports and develops entrepreneurship and innovation at the University, and helps commercialise SU's innovations.
Derwalt's work is in line with SU's core strategic theme of “Research for impact", which is inter alia aimed at conducting collaborative and interdisciplinary research that addresses the greatest challenges of society and helps ensure sustainability. Reflecting on the international exchange, Derwalt says: “It was enriching to have the opportunity to engage with an expert at UC3M to further develop my work. Our experience together was a journey that started with the sharing of ideas, which became increasingly practical over time, and eventually culminated in a valuable research contribution. I learnt that there is significant potential to find meaning in an encounter with someone from a different educational background and culture."
In between his work, he also had a chance to immerse himself in the Spanish way of life. “I was able to learn the Spanish language, experience the culture, get to know the country and establish new friendships – all of this largely enabled through the Erasmus+ student network."
