Northumbria is one of three North East universities who
will form a new research centre to improve energy technology at the atomic
level.
The North East Centre for Energy Materials will bring engineers,
chemists, biologists and physicists together to develop new high performance
materials to improve efficiency in energy generation, storage and transmission
systems
Funded by the Government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge
Fund via the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the newly-formed
centre unites the broad range of expertise at Northumbria, Newcastle and Durham
Universities to further enhance the region’s expertise in tackling the grand
challenge of energy.
Northumbria’s contribution will be led by Dr Neil Beattie, from the Department of Mathematics, Physics
and Electrical Engineering, which has played a key role in the University’s
reputation as one of Europe’s leading institutions for photovoltaics and solar
cell research.
Dr Beattie said: “This project is the culmination of
several smaller projects led collaboratively with my colleague Dr Guillaume Zoppi and funded by the Royal Society and the EPSRC.
“During the project, the Northumbria team will lead a
collaboration with Newcastle and Durham to develop low-cost, scalable light
absorbing materials to capture energy from the sun. The transformative part of
our technology is the nanoparticle inks, which can be sprayed or painted onto
large area substrates such as steel or glass. Working collaboratively with
researchers at Durham and Newcastle allows us to combine expertise and
resources which will ultimately push new performance limits.”
The new centre brings together expertise in tidal and wave
energy, solar, batteries, energy storage, biomass, and ‘smart grids’ that are
able to manage power simultaneously from all of these different sources. There
will be many different projects run by the Centre with each University
contributing their existing strengths and ensuring the region’s energy research
becomes more than the sum of its parts. In addition, Northumbria’s work in
reaching out to school students with advanced physics is a key part of the
Centre.
Dr Beattie added: “The main drivers for our research in
advanced energy materials are cost, sustainability and performance. In addition
to solar photovoltaics, we will explore new applications for semiconductor
nanotechnology in energy storage and energy generation.”
Northumbria recently opened new £6.7m STEM facilities on
campus, co-funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Newcastle
University’s new Urban Sciences Building on Science Central, the former
Scottish and Newcastle Brewery site, includes several full-scale energy
research laboratories including the National Centre for Energy Systems
Integration in which Durham University is a partner. The Durham Energy
Institute, part of Durham University, will contribute particularly in the area
of solar energy, simulation, and the advanced analytical tools needed to observe
how materials behave at the molecular level.
As well as the research expertise and facilities of the
three universities, the North East’s industrial and technology strengths were
also crucial to winning funding for the project. You can visit the project website here.
Northumbria offers a range of course in Mathematics, Physics and Electrical
Engineering and leads world-class research into energy materials, smart
materials and photovoltaics. To find out more about this click here.
