Meet the team

Research Lead

Professor Yongliang Li, Professor in Thermal Energy Engineering

Professor Yongliang Li is a Chair in Thermal Energy Engineering in the School of Chemical Engineering and Deputy Director of the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage. His research vision is to address the challenges of electrification and decarbonisation of thermal energy for the resilience of the future renewable energy supply chain, by the development and deployment of efficient and cost-effective thermal energy storage and conversion technologies via fundamental innovation in composite materials development and phase transition process intensification. He is leading several major EPSRC-funded projects in decarbonization of heating and cooling and grid-scale energy storage, and is coordinating an international research exchange platform on sustainable cooling and cold storage. He has authored and co-authored more than 130 journal papers, reviews and book chapters.

Email: y.li.1@bham.ac.uk

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6231-015X

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kHRF2B0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=56156518900

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yongliang-Li-10

Research Portal: https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/persons/yongliang-li

Research Fellows

Dr Waseem Aftab, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr Waseem Aftab obtained his PhD degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Peking University in 2019. He was awarded International Exchange Talent Fellowship at same institution from 2019 to 2021 and President Fellowship at Southern University of Science and Technology from 2021 to 2022. Waseem has contributed over 35 articles in peer reviewed high impact journals and have received over 1700 citations, with h-index of 19. His contributions have been awarded with Governor Gold Medal, Outstanding Foreign Student award, and Peking University Academic award. His research interests mainly focus on development of functional materials for thermal energy harvesting, storage, and utilization.

Email: w.aftab@bham.ac.uk

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3121-379X

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gDeVDisAAAAJ&hl=en

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Waseem-Aftab

Dr Hassan Agalit, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr Hassan Agalit has been a Research Fellow at the BCES since 2020. He is an industrial process engineer who graduated in 2013 from the High National School of Mines of Rabat (ENSMR), Morocco. In 2019 Hassan obtained his PhD in Process Engineering from the Mohammadia School of Engineering in Rabat, Morocco. As part of his PhD fellowship, he investigated the dynamic behaviours of high-temperature packed bed thermal energy storage (TES) technology, as well as developed novel low-cost high-temperature storage materials from local industrial wastes. In May 2017 he joined the Moroccan Research Institute of Solar Energy and Renewables (IRESEN), initially working on industrial processes and thermal energy storage, and following the completion of his PhD as Head of the Thermal Storage group. During his professional career, Hassan worked on several European and Moroccan research projects, including ORC-PLUS (EU-funded H-2020 project), Power to Heat (funded by EDF-R/IRSESN P2H), Knowledge Transfer Partnership (funded by UKRI), HARVEST (funded by EPSRC). Hassan current research focuses on nano-engineered novel sustainable thermochemical materials, for application in industrial heating and cooling decarbonisation. He has published several peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers.

Email: h.agalit@bham.ac.uk

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2372-5966

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.fr/citations?hl=en&user=mYDfrqUAAAAJ

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57073862100

Dr Dacheng Li, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr Dacheng Li joined BCES in 2022 as a Research Fellow, focusing on thermochemical storage using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to characterise the materials and optimise the device structure and operation to enhance the performance of sorption-based energy storage. Previously he worked as an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2012-19, with his research mainly focused on the intelligent optimisation of thermal energy conversion and storage (e.g., phase change materials) to improve the energy efficiency of energy systems and to increase the economic benefits to stakeholders. He then extended his research scope at the University of Warwick (UoW) in 2019-2022, looking at larger-scale energy systems (regional and national) to achieve sustainable and reliable decarbonisation of the energy system through integrating diverse renewables, thermal and electrical storage, and electrification of heating (e.g., heat pump) and transportation. Dacheng has a wealth of research experience in intelligent approaches on energy storage across the micro (storage material particle) to macro (GW-level energy systems) scales.

Email: d.li.6@bham.ac.uk

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=O6hGz9oAAAAJ&hl=en

Dr Tiejun Lu, ERDF Research Fellow

Dr Tiejun Lu is a Knowledge Exchange Fellow working on the ATETA project, which aims to promote research and innovation in the adoption of zero-carbon energy technologies for SME’s that are active in the Black Country, Coventry and Warwickshire and the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership Areas. Tiejun has rich experience and expertise in thermal energy storage systems and heat pump technologies.

Email: t.lu.20@bham.ac.uk

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=7402684821

Dr Yi Wang, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr Yi Wang has been Research Fellow in BCES since 2020. He has been working on thermal and fluids both experimentally and numerically since 2011 with accomplished projects including pool boiling heat transfer on nano-coated semiconductor surfaces and heat transfer of microencapsulated phase change material slurry in helical coil heat exchangers. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2019. Since joined the BCES, Yi has been working on cold and thermochemical energy storage by using novel composite materials and working fluids. His current research goal is to contribute on the decarbonisation of heating and cooling through advanced materials, fluids, components and systems.

Email: y.wang.23@bham.ac.uk

Scopus: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57198455176

Dr Samuel Widijatmoko, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr Samuel D Widijatmoko received his BEng (Hons) and PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nottingham (China) in 2016 and 2020 respectively. He joined University of Nottingham (UK) for a further 19 months as a Research Fellow under EPSRC Photo-Electro grant. At BCES, he is involved in the EPSRC PATCH project as Research Fellow. Samuel’s research interests lie in the field of sustainable engineering, i.e. developing processes that do not compromise the natural environment or the ability of future generations to meet their needs. His research & development experience involves resource recovery from waste electronics, applying spectroscopy in recycling, photocatalysis and electrocatalysis. Samuel’s previous works have either been patented or published as peer reviewed articles.

Email: s.d.widijatmoko@bham.ac.uk

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6194-3454

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=f13XZKYAAAAJ&hl=id&oi=ao

Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samuel-Widijatmoko

PhD Students

Darem Ahmad

Darem Ahmad is a chartered chemical engineer awarded by the Institution of Chemical Engineers and Engineering Council. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum Engineering and a Master’s in Advanced Chemical Engineering, both from the University of Manchester. Darem has extensive industrial experience in process fluids systems.

He joined the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage group in March 2022 to carry out a part-time PhD to develop in-depth knowledge of academic research alongside his full-time employment. His research interests are around numerical development and optimisation of advanced fluid mixtures for heat transfer applications, such as air conditioning and heat pumps, whilst meeting environmental and regulatory requirements to support achieving net-zero emission targets.

Email: dxa151@student.bham.ac.uk

Hangzuo Guo

Hangzuo Guo is working under the supervision of Professor Yongliang Li since September 2022. He graduated from the University of Leeds with a distinction Master of Science degree in Energy and Environment. He has been working on membrane separation since 2018 with projects including modification of oil/water separation membrane and novel functional nanoparticles for forward osmosis water desalination. Since joining BCES, Hangzuo developed an enthusiasm for thermochemical heat storage. His research mainly focuses on developing a moving bed reactor for porous granular-based thermochemical heat storage solution. In addition, he will aim to test the reaction kinetics and cyclic stability of the composite granules inside the moving bed reactor technology. In this scope, he will develop empirical equations/models of the reactor to perform whole system modelling and assessment.

Email: hxg222@student.bham.ac.uk

Qiqiu Huang

Qiqiu Huang started his PhD in December 2022 under supervision of Prof Yongliang Li. He has background in application of phase change materials in thermal management, including in batteries which was a topic of his Masters’ degree. Qiqiu has published more than 10 research papers on energy storage in international journals, including one highly cited paper. His PhD research project aims to develop new composite sorbents suitable for potential application of thermal management of electric vehicles including the cabin thermal comfort and electric battery thermal management, with the specific technical requirements of high capacity and fast response.

Email: qxh287@student.bham.ac.uk

Rachel Masala

Rachel Masala received her MEng degree in chemical engineering from the university of Lancaster in 2020. She joined BCES in October 2022 for her PhD research, focusing on techno-economic assessments of heating and cooling decarbonisation technologies.

Email: rnm261@student.bham.ac.uk

Ren Yang

Ren Yang obtained a Bachelor’s degree (2003-2007) in Thermal and Power Engineering and a Master’s degree (2007-2010) in Marine Engineering from Harbin Engineering University. He was a lecturer in the College of Energy and Power Engineering at Harbin Engineering University before starting his PhD study at the University of Birmingham. He is currently working on the numerical simulation of the flow boiling behaviours of the phase change slurries in microchannels for the thermal management of power batteries and high-power electronics.

Email: rxy812@student.bham.ac.uk