Energy Materials Research Facility at the Harwell Research Complex

This proposal sets out to establish an Energy Materials Research Facility (EMReF) in the Research Complex at Harwell. Energy issues, both nationally and internationally, are among the most urgent and important global challenges. Energy storage and efficiency, CO2 mitigation and reducing our dependence on limited fossil fuel supplies for energy conversion are all recognised as major challenges and there is a strong expectation that these issues will be addressed in large part by new scientific developments and technological solutions. EMRef will make important and timely contributions to this effort.

EMReF is the initial step in forming a consortium of UK academics with expertise across the field of energy research. Central facilities such as the Diamond Light Source and the ISIS Spallation Neutron Source, collocated on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus alongside the Research Complex, and HECToR, the supercomputer based at Edinburgh, form a significant sector of the UK research base.

Our VISION is to transform the impact of these central facilities in energy research. EMReF cuts across traditional subject boundaries and plans to link into a number of the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council's Sustainable Power Generation and Supply (SUPERGEN) consortia. It will also foster close links with industry and organisations such as UK Energy Research Centre, National Physical Laboratory and the Energy Technologies Institute. EMReF will impact on a broad range of energy research and technology from materials discovery and the fundamental understanding of physical processes through to systems performance, material scale-up and pilot plant assessment.

In addition to establishing the Research Complex, Diamond and ISIS together as the premier location worldwide for central facilities energy research, our OBJECTIVES are (i) to foster synergy and collaborations with academia, industry and government agencies in the UK, Europe and beyond through shared development programmes, collaborative experiments and an extended visitor programme, (ii) to train a new generation of scientists in an exciting and challenging multi-disciplinary environment in energy-related projects that span the physical sciences and engineering and involve the biological sciences, (iii) to develop new generations of solutions for immediate energy-technology requirements and plan long-term programmes across energy research that include energy storage (batteries, hydrogen), energy harvesting (photocatalysts, photovoltaics and electrocatalysts for fuel production) and energy utilisation (fuel cells) and (iv) to promote and communicate scientific results and advances via high level publications, workshops, conferences, outreach and extensive knowledge-transfer activities.

Our proposed research in EMReF will have a major impact in energy research and technology across academia, industry and national and international government agencies. Central facilities such as Diamond and ISIS are a significant component of the UK research infrastructure and provide unique insights into our microscopic understanding of the materials world. The knowledge that will be gained in the EMReF collaboration from the discovery and characterisation of new materials and from the analysis of in-operando studies of fuel cells and high capacity batteries, for example, has the potential to shorten the timescales for the implementation of new sustainable energy technologies. The resultant economic and societal impacts of a more rapid reduction in our dependence on a fossil-fuel based energy infrastructure are immense globally. Our goal is to maximise the influence that the UK central facilities will have in this grand challenge.

The initial short term beneficiaries will be the 3 investigators and the researchers of UK-SHEC who will be involved with EMReF. As the EMReF programme develops we expect a broad national and international academic and industrial research community to become involved. While the majority of these researchers will be energy-related, many of the new facilities developed in EMReF will have a wide applicability across the physical and biological sciences and we will encourage their broadest utilisation. The proposal has a strong short-term impact by imparting a unique combination of experimental and modelling skills to early-career scientists that will be of use to solve other key scientific and technological problems. The project will train resident and visiting scientists at EMReF to enhance the necessary skills-base of the UK in important and timely areas relating to energy and sustainability.

Beneficiaries from the private sector will include industries such as car manufacturers, fuel cell companies and energy providers. The EMReF consortium has strong links with SMEs and major energy-related companies and will seek to develop their closer involvement through joint participation in research undertaken in the Research Complex, Diamond and ISIS. Energy research is a long term undertaking and the realistic timescale for realising these benefits is 10-20 years.

STFC Innovation Ltd. will work closely with the EMReF investigators in the Research Complex and with the relevant university technology transfer offices to ensure that the project will be managed to engage users and beneficiaries, and will maximise impacts. Opportunities to license and spin-out the inventions and discoveries will be explored. Exploitation of the outputs of research during and after the lifetime of the grant will be indentified via discussion within EMReF with STFC Innovation Ltd. and associated university and industry partners. Public engagement and outreach, including presentations at public events, in schools and colleges will be managed in consultation with the Research Complex.

EMReF research has high applicability to the energy-based priority areas of Research Councils and the Government within the UK and globally. The research will inform stakeholders, funding agencies and policy makers in the areas of energy and sustainable development.