A New Demonstrator on the Ecole Polytechnique Lake

How do you turn a lake into a scientific testing site?

If you've been walking around the lake on the Ecole polytechnique campus recently, you've probably noticed that construction work is underway. If you're wondering what's happening there, you've come to the right place.

The Energy4Climate Interdisciplinary Center (E4C) at Institut Polytechnique de Paris is currently deploying its future scientific demonstrator: XSeaO₂.

Why install a demonstrator on a lake?

This location was carefully chosen. XSeaO₂ aims to explore a new way of harnessing CO₂ dissolved in water to produce non-fossil synthetic fuels. The project seeks to investigate solutions that could help reduce our reliance on fossil resources while supporting the transition toward more sustainable energy systems.

CO₂ dissolved in aquatic environments is a promising yet largely untapped resource. The lake on the École polytechnique campus provides an ideal setting for testing this approach under real-world conditions. By combining photovoltaic energy production with innovative CO₂ capture and conversion processes, this platform will enable researchers at the Energy4Climate Center to identify the technical, social, and environmental challenges involved, including assessing the public acceptance of these technologies and their impact on biodiversity.

In the longer term, the ambition is to develop larger-scale platforms that could be deployed in marine environments.

To learn more, visit the XSeaO₂ demonstrator webpage.

This project is supported by the Fondation de l'École polytechnique, the Ifker Climate Fund (Stéphane Ifker and Agnès Nicolas Ifker), and the France 2030 programme of the French National Research Agency (ANR).