DTU Offshore Lab: Energy, Environment & Forensics – Plus Halloween Mystery Lab Tour!

Dear Copenhagen SPE Members and Students,

You are invited to the DTU Offshore SPE Meeting on October 29, 2025.

Program

17:00-18:00 Social Hour: drinks

18:00-18:50 Presentation by Karen Feilberg:

‘DTU-Offshore Lab capabilities: Uses in Energy research, environmental research and crime forensics’

19:00-19:30 Sandwich dinner

19:30-20:30 ‘Halloween Mystery Lab Tour’

Abstract

‘DTU-Offshore Lab capabilities: Uses in Energy research, environmental research and crime forensics’.

By Karen Feilberg

DTU Offshore’s laboratory facilities provide advanced experimental capabilities that support both fundamental and applied research in offshore energy production. Researchers use these facilities to develop, test, and validate methods that enhance the efficiency and sustainability of offshore operations across the oil, gas, wind power and CCS industries. The experiments conducted in the labs help industrial partners improve production processes while mitigating environmental impacts, such as harmful discharges to the sea and emissions to the atmosphere.

The laboratories are equipped to simulate and analyze complex interactions between industrial activities and the marine environment and the subsurface. Through controlled experiments, researchers investigate the degradation and behavior of pollutants in seawater, the dispersion of subsea emissions, and the interactions between sediments, biofilms, and other marine components. This work provides critical insights into the fate and transport of materials such as water additives, drilling fluids and lubricants, helping to develop environmentally sound offshore technologies and informing assessments and mitigation strategies that support sustainable ocean use.

While designed for offshore energy applications, the laboratories’ advanced experimental capabilities are valuable for a wide range of disciplines. The same analytical and detection techniques used to trace marine contaminants can, for example, be applied in forensic science to uncover underlying environmental phenomena or criminal activity. This range of applications of advanced analytical equipment will be demonstrated during the presentation and highlighted further on the subsequent lab tour.

Biography:                             

Karen Feilberg is a senior Research Scientist at DTU Offshore and in charge of the experimental capabilities of its research lab. Prior to this she worked at COWI, Copenhagen University, The University of California Berkeley and Universität Göttingen.  Karen holds a PhD and MSc in (Atmospheric) Chemistry from the University of Copenhagen (KU) and a BSc in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Following the presentation and sandwich dinner there will be a ‘Halloween Mystery Lab Tour’.

“A dead body of a young person is found in the basement of DTU, just two days before Halloween. Academia is in shock, who is this person, and how did the victim die?”

Visitors will be introduced to the full range of investigative capabilities present in the DTU-Offshore laboratory, and scientific test results will be used to solve the mystery.

We look forward to seeing you all at this special Halloween SPE-CPH meeting!

Best Regards,

The SPE-CPH Board