ISCF Wave 1: North East Centre for Energy Materials

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UUI
UUI
UUI
UUI
UUI

£9,168,370

Sept. 30, 2017

May 25, 2021

A wealth of world-leading international research is aimed at addressing the global challenges of energy (both generation and storage), climate-change and the problems associated with finding sustainable methods to meet our increasing energy demands. Much of this effort focuses on making existing technology more robust, efficient and cheaper or discovering new methods to convert, store and transmit renewable energy. For engineers, chemists, biologists and physicists working within the confines of their own research fields, it is impossible to recognise all of the key problems for given energy system.
These problems present on an extremely broad range of length scales (nm-m) and consequently calls for significantly more collaboration between the physical science and engineering to transmit the success of new materials discovery and understanding of the behaviour of these new materials to achieve durable, efficient, sustainable and manufacturable energy systems.

The North East Centre for Energy Materials (NECEM), formed between the universities of Newcastle, Durham and Northumbria, seeks to unite the broad range of expertise present at the three sites to tackle a grand challenge of energy
materials and will make it possible to cooperate widely with local, national and international industry. The main focus of NECEM will be to address one of the most fundamentally critical elements of all energy systems, namely the interfaces between the materials within it and their interaction with the environment in which they operate. NECEM aims to be a world-leading programme on the understanding and manipulation of such interfaces in energy materials. The vision is to identify, exploring our unique blend of materials discovery, analysis techniques and energy applications new approaches operating over the full range of length scales (nm-m) that overcome existing limitations, such as corrosion, charge trapping, marine fouling. By addressing previously unexplored directions NECEM has the ability to provide an urgently needed step change in the science and engineering of materials that use, generate and store energy more efficiently.

The assets of NECEM include the breadth of expertise within marine energy (tidal and wave energy), solar (photovoltaic and solar fuels by photo-electrochemistry), fuel cells (hydrogen and alcohol based, also enzymatic and microbial), energy storage (Li-Ion, redox-flow batteries), biomass (gasification, fermentation and direct conversion to heat or even electricity) and local smart grid structure (with concurrent production and consumption of renewable energy). We invite the Energy Materials community to engage with our centre to access this expertise and our unique blend of surface processing and characterization techniques distributed across the three sites. Probing and manipulating processes occurring at surfaces and interfaces is exceptionally complex but by combining our state-of-the-art facilities, which are ideal for this challenge, and our expertise in modelling behaviour in materials to compete systems, we can drive the development of new durable, efficient and sustainable energy solutions. We are geared towards cooperation with other centres in the UK in order to be able to cover a broad portfolio of all relevant energy material problems. This centre has the strong advantage of close proximity and brings together expertise from neighboring universities in the North East of England. Importantly this will enhance knowledge exchange and collaboration increasing the probability of success of the centre. It is also very attractive for additional funding both within the UK and in Europe.

Potential Impact:
NECEM's goals are threefold:

1) to provide a centre of excellence that produces highly skilled and motivated researchers through addressing key fundamental scientific questions regarding the interfacial properties of materials for energy applications;
2) To provide a regional hub to engage with the industrial community, particularly in the North East, the wider UK Energy Research arena via the other Centres and Supergen Networks, and the international community to promote the reputation of UK Science;
3) To act jointly within these communities to address barriers to commercialisation of potentially transformative energy technology that could improve the quality of life and economy in the UK.

The funds will provide the security and necessary expertise over four years to enable our team to address pioneering projects that have the potential to make a high impact. Reactive projects will permit a rapid response to exciting and unexpected new discoveries from our own research and elsewhere and Joint projects with other world-leading groups supported by our visitor and mobility program.

The UK and EU governments see Energy as a priority that will drive progress towards meeting the pledged 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Energy is intimately linked to productivity and security and therefore improvements in affordability the environmental impact are critical to Society. NECEM supports this vision by pooling talent across several key technology areas to address scientific bottlenecks and accelerate innovation and implementation of more efficient and sustainable energy generation, storage and distribution. The applications covered by NECEM are broad and include marine, solar, fuel cells, batteries, biomass and local smart grid structure. However, each have a fundamental challenge in common: the properties of the interface dictate their efficiency, stability and often the cost of their manufacture. NECEM is uniquely positioned to address these challenges 1) by scientific and engineering expertise; 2) by sharing access to our powerful facilities specifically developed to examine the properties of interfaces between two materials or surfaces in contact with corrosive environments; 3) by closely collaborating with industry at every stage of the project; 4) by exploiting the benefits of our location, close to each other and key players in the community that we will engage with. Bringing these currently successful but independent research groups under the umbrella of NECEM will accelerate the way we examine and learn to engineer complex behavior at interfaces. It is likely that a mixture of each of these technologies will be required in our future energy portfolio and success in any would be the difference between a niche application and a transformative technology. Synergy between academia and industry will be ensured through our industrial advisory board, collaborative projects and annual showcasing events. Success will enable us to improve not only the reputation of UK science but also the international competitiveness of UK business through the provision of highly trained personnel and product innovation.

Given the importance of NECEM's research to society, our dissemination and outreach program will ensure that developments within our centre and the wider community are communicated to the general public. While each institution has a strong public engagement program already, combining our manpower and expertise will enable us to be even more ambitious in our approach. Acceptance of new technology by the public is one of the greatest barriers to wide-spread commercialisation faced by an emerging technology. Demonstrating technology within Science Central and hosting workshops and activities at the Centre for Life, the Great North Museum, Soapbox Science in Newcastle city centre in addition to national science fairs will enable us to discuss the Societal benefits and address the Public's apprehension.