Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems

The usage of biofuels and bio-products are becoming of great interest within political, industrial and transport circles as a way to reduce the carbon footprint and achieve environmental targets. However, existing infrastructure to produce these products require materials and sources that are non-sustainable or from feedstocks that could be used for other vital products (such as food crops), which could lead to increasing land change use, deforestation and increase costs.

Fuels and biomaterials sourced from non-edible or waste crops could prove to be more sustainable and more readily available. A prime example is biomass sources rich in lignocellulose, such as switch grass and wood chips, that can be broken down to yield certain precursors that could be processed to synthesise fuels such as bioethanol. Nevertheless, the expensive process required for pre-treatment of biomass and production of fuels alone on a mass-scale is not cost effective. The biorefinery concept involves use of biomass to produce value-added products from biofuels to valuable platform chemicals to boost the economic performance for producing biomaterials.

The aim of the project is to research into the pathways of synthesising liquid lignin fuel and terpene-derived biopolymers with assessment and optimisation of their characteristics regarding their suitability for use within the automobile industry. Lignin is a by-product of the Kraft Pulping Process and accounts for 85% of global lignin production. Lignin is burned to provide heating and power to the paper mills. Lignin has good fuel potential and more energy-rich than ethanol. Terpenes are a renewable, cheap, and abundant source of hydrocarbons that is produced naturally and found within forest residues, crops and plants. Additionally, crude sulfate terpnetine (CST) is also produced from the Kraft paper pulping process with approximately 260,000 tonnes of this by-product is produced annually and is estimated to cost $220 per metric tonnes.

The project objectives include the determination of the synthetic pathways to reduce hydrogen bonding within solid Kraftwood lignin to reduce intermolecular hydrogen bonding to allow the phase change to a liquid fuel and then assess upgrading of the fuel. Additionally, the conversion of beta-pinene (a cheap, naturally occurring terpene) into the diene compound pseudo-limonene which would allow epoxidation. Following hydrogenation, the attempt of polymerising the species with urethane to produce polyurethane. Additionally, subsequent to optimising the synthetic pathways of aforementioned products, an assessment of how these procedures could be adapted for existing mass-scale processes for producing fuels and biomaterials with consideration of cost will be carried out.

The impact is the possibility of producing liquid lignin biofuels and terpene-based polyurethanes cost-effectively via using synthetic pathways that could be used within existing technologies. Both of which would have a significant impact within the automotive industry. The thesis will involve the consideration of producing these products within a biorefinery concept in the hope of providing further insight into the prospects of creating these products from bio-renewable sources.

Impact Summary

This proposal has been developed from the ground up to guarantee the highest level of impact. The two principal routes towards impact are via the graduates that we train and by the embedding of the research that is undertaken into commercial activity. The impact will have a significant commercial value through addressing skills requirements and providing technical solutions for the automotive industry - a key sector for the UK economy.

The graduates that emerge from our CDT (at least 84 people) will be transformative in two distinct ways. The first is a technical route and the second is cultural.

In a technical role, their deep subject matter expertise across all of the key topics needed as the industry transitions to a more sustainable future. This expertise is made much more accessible and applicable by their broad understanding of the engineering and commercial context in which they work. They will have all of the right competencies to ensure that they can achieve a very significant contribution to technologies and processes within the sector from the start of their careers, an impact that will grow over time. Importantly, this CDT is producing graduates in a highly skilled sector of the economy, leading to jobs that are £50,000 more productive per employee than average (i.e. more GVA). These graduates are in demand, as there are a lack of highly skilled engineers to undertake specialist automotive propulsion research and fill the estimated 5,000 job vacancies in the UK due to these skills shortages. Ultimately, the CDT will create a highly specialised and productive talent pipeline for the UK economy.

The route to impact through cultural change is perhaps of even more significance in the long term. Our cohort will be highly diverse, an outcome driven by our wide catchment in terms of academic background, giving them a 'diversity edge'. The cultural change that is enabled by this powerful cohort will have a profound impact, facilitating a move away from 'business as usual'.

The research outputs of the CDT will have impact in two important fields - the products produced and processes used within the indsutry. The academic team leading and operating this CDT have a long track record of generating impact through the application of their research outputs to industrially relevant problems. This understanding is embodied in the design of our CDT and has already begun in the definition of the training programmes and research themes that will meet the future needs of our industry and international partners. Exchange of people is the surest way to achieve lasting and deep exchange of expertise and ideas. The students will undertake placements at the collaborating companies and will lead to employment of the graduates in partner companies.

The CDT is an integral part of the IAAPS initiative. The IAAPS Business Case highlights the need to develop and train suitably skilled and qualified engineers in order to achieve, over the first five years of IAAPS' operations, an additional £70 million research and innovation expenditure, creating an additional turnover of £800 million for the automotive sector, £221 million in GVA and 1,900 new highly productive jobs.

The CDT is designed to deliver transformational impact for our industrial partners and the automotive sector in general. The impact is wider than this, since the products and services that our partners produce have a fundamental part to play in the way we organise our lives in a modern society. The impact on the developing world is even more profound. The rush to mobility across the developing world, the increasing spending power of a growing global middle class, the move to more urban living and the increasingly urgent threat of climate change combine to make the impact of the work we do directly relevant to more people than ever before. This CDT can help change the world by effecting the change that needs to happen in our industry.