RESEARCH THEMES
- hydrogen production
- biofuels
- catalysis
- hydrocarbons reforming
- Solid Oxide Cells
- fuels for SOFC
- water and wastewater technology
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
- Research Fellow II in the EPSRC IAA project Sustainable Hydrogen, Naphtha, Aviation Fuel and Diesel from Scrap Tyres. The project has been carrying out research in close collaboration with the industry in the development of drop-in transport bio-fuels via hydrogenation of bio-oil obtained from pyrolysis of end-of-life tyres.
- Project Manager of a consortium of 12 industrial and academic partners in the EU H2020 GreenFlexJET project (€15m). The GreenFlexJET project is constructing a pre-commercial demonstration plant for the production of advanced aviation biofuel (jet fuel) from waste vegetable oil and organic solid waste biomass, demonstrating the SABR-TCR technology i.e. transesterification, hydrodeoxygenation and hydrocracking/isomerisation, and Thermo-Catalytic Reforming combined with hydrogen separation through pressure swing adsorption to produce a fully equivalent jet fuel.
PAST RESEARCH ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Research Fellow II in the Joint University-Industry Consortium for Energy Materials and Devices Hub (JUICED) project. The project was carrying out research in close collaboration with industry in the development of energy materials up to demonstrator level (research on nano-enabled energy materials).
- The Demonstration of Waste Biomass to Synthetic Fuels and Green Hydrogen (TO-SYN-FUEL) EU H2020 project (lead by Fraunhofer UMSICHT) has been demonstrating the conversion of organic waste biomass (sewage sludge) into biofuels. The pre-commercial scale 500 kg/h TCR plant is under construction in Germany. The project implements an integrated process combining Thermo-Catalytic Reforming (TCR), with hydrogen separation through pressure swing adsorption, and hydrodeoxygenation, to produce a fully equivalent gasoline and diesel substitute and green hydrogen for use in transport.
- Power-to-Gas energy storage concept tailored for developing countries - funded by GCRF/UoB.
- Demonstration of Catalytic Properties of Char from Thermo-Catalytic Reforming (TCR) of Deinking Sludge project (funded by EPSRC, UK) has been demonstrating advance utilisation of wastes from paper mills with additional benefit in the production of bio-oil, syngas and char.
- Biogas to energy - Catalyst for biogas combined steam/dry reforming - EPSRC Global Challenges Research Fund. In this project, we aimed to develop a more economically viable method for producing hydrogen from biowaste. Our project aimed to develop a novel catalyst able to convert biogas into H2 and CO.
- The project ‘Working towards Mass Manufactured, Low-Cost and Robust SOFC stacks’ (funded by FCH JU, EU) addressed a novel design solution for lightweight SOFC stacks that decouples the thermal stresses within the stack and at the same time allows best sealing and contacting.
- Sofc Apu for Auxiliary Road-truck Installations (SAFARI) project aimed to design, optimise and build 100 W solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) stacks, and to integrate them into truck cab power systems (auxiliary power unit). The system comprised units from industrial partners ALMUS (Switzerland) and from ADELAN (UK) with a battery found in a truck.
- The project “Rural hybrid energy enterprise system” (funded by EPSRC, UK) goal was hybrid renewable energy systems at a scale suitable for rural communities. It was a consortium of six universities from UK and eighth universities from India.
- Supply Chain Research Applied to Clean Hydrogen project (funded by EPSRC, UK). The goal was to develop a fuel cell system, from hydrogen production, storage, to utilisation and application.
- Project “Squeezing hydrogen out of biomass; new catalysts for clean energy generation” (funded EPSRC, UK). A Ru-based system was developed for catalytic hydrogen generation from formic acid. The main goal was to design a rector with a continuous feed system that could produce up to 1 kg of H2 per day.
- European Commission Framework 6 Project "Real SOFC". It was one of the biggest fuel cell related projects in Europe with 39 industrial and academic partners. The project aimed at solving the problems of ageing with planar SOFC in industrial applications. That included gaining the full understanding of degradation processes, finding solutions to reduce ageing and producing improved materials.