The consortium meetings of the HOP-ON VanillaFlow and CETP-HERCULES projects were held in Istanbul on March 26–27, 2026. Hosted by SUNUM, the event brought together academic and industrial partners from both projects to review progress, align objectives, and evaluate ongoing work.
Over the course of the two-day meeting, participants delivered technical presentations covering a broad spectrum of topics, including yeast design, advanced membrane technologies, AI-supported electrochemistry, carbon felt engineering, and detailed assessments of individual work packages.
Representatives from leading partner institutions participated in the meeting, including Ecolyte GmbH, Graz University of Technology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Montanuniversität Leoben, University of Alicante, and BBD Biophenix. The joint consortium meeting was supported by the European Union.
The project titled “Hopping on Artificial Intelligence Guided Development of Vanillin-based Flow Batteries – HOP-ON VanillaFlow” is led by SUNUM researcher Barun Kumar Chakrabarti and coordinated by Graz University of Technology by Stefan Spirk. It is funded under the Horizon Europe call HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-06-01 (Hop-On Facility). The SUNUM research team includes Tülay İnan, Mina Namvari, Serap Hayat Soytaş, Mustafa Kemal Bayazıt, Züleyha Kudaş, Reza Afshar Ghotli, Zehra Çobandede, and Baidaa Shorbani.
The project “Hydrogen Organic Regenerative Fuel Cell for Stationary Energy Storage (HERCULES)” is led by SUNUM researcher Tülay İnan and coordinated by University of Alicante by Andres ParraA Puerto. It is supported under the TÜBİTAK 1071 Multi-Partner Collaboration (CETPartnership) program. In addition to SUNUM, project partners include Graz University of Technology and Ecolyte GmbH. The SUNUM research team involved in this project consists of Barun Kumar Chakrabarti, Mina Namvari, Mustafa Kemal Bayazıt, Serap Hayat Soytaş, Rumman Zaidi, Amina Ben Ayed, and Züleyha Kudaş.
