The CDT proposal 'Fuel Cells and their Fuels - Clean Power for the 21st Century' is a focused and structured programme to train >52 students within 9 years in basic principles of the subject and guide them in conducting their PhD theses. This initiative answers the need for developing the human resources well before the demand for trained and experienced engineering and scientific staff begins to strongly increase towards the end of this decade. Market introduction of fuel cell products is expected from 2015 and the requirement for effort in developing robust and cost effective products will grow in parallel with market entry. The consortium consists of the Universities of Birmingham (lead), Nottingham, Loughborough, Imperial College and University College of London. Ulster University is added as a partner in developing teaching modules. The six Centre directors and the 60+ supervisor group have an excellent background of scientific and teaching expertise and are well established in national and international projects and Fuel Cell, Hydrogen and other fuel processing research and development. The Centre programme consists of seven compulsory taught modules worth 70 credit points, covering the four basic introduction modules to Fuel Cell and Hydrogen technologies and one on Safety issues, plus two business-oriented modules which were designed according to suggestions from industry partners. Further - optional - modules worth 50 credits cover the more specialised aspects of Fuel Cell and fuel processing technologies, but also include socio-economic topics and further modules on business skills that are invaluable in preparing students for their careers in industry. The programme covers the following topics out of which the individual students will select their area of specialisation: - electrochemistry, modelling, catalysis; - materials and components for low temperature fuel cells (PEFC, 80 and 120 -130 degC), and for high temperature fuel cells (SOFC) operating at 500 to 800 degC; - design, components, optimisation and control for low and high temperature fuel cell systems; including direct use of hydrocarbons in fuel cells, fuel processing and handling of fuel impurities; integration of hydrogen systems including hybrid fuel-cell-battery and gas turbine systems; optimisation, control design and modelling; integration of renewable energies into energy systems using hydrogen as a stabilising vector; - hydrogen production from fossil fuels and carbon-neutral feedstock, biological processes, and by photochemistry; hydrogen storage, and purification; development of low and high temperature electrolysers; - analysis of degradation phenomena at various scales (nano-scale in functional layers up to systems level), including the development of accelerated testing procedures; - socio-economic and cross-cutting issues: public health, public acceptance, economics, market introduction; system studies on the benefits of FCH technologies to national and international energy supply. The training programme can build on the vast investments made by the participating universities in the past and facilitated by EPSRC, EU, industry and private funds. The laboratory infrastructure is up to date and fully enables the work of the student cohort. Industry funding is used to complement the EPSRC funding and add studentships on top of the envisaged 52 placements. The Centre will emphasise the importance of networking and exchange of information across the scientific and engineering field and thus interacts strongly with the EPSRC-SUPERGEN Hub in Fuel Cells and Hydrogen, thus integrating the other UK universities active in this research area, and also encourage exchanges with other European and international training initiatives. The modules will be accessible to professionals from the interacting industry in order to foster exchange of students with their peers in industry.

The Circular Economy (CE) is a revolutionary alternative to a traditional linear, make-use-dispose economy. It is based on the central principle of maintaining continuous flows of resources at their highest value for the longest period and then recovering, cascading and regenerating products and materials at the end of each life cycle. Metals are ideal flows for a circular economy. With careful stewardship and good technology, metals mined from the Earth can be reused indefinitely. Technology metals (techmetals) are an essential, distinct, subset of specialist metals. Although they are used in much smaller quantities than industrial metals such as iron and aluminium, each techmetal has its own specific and special properties that give it essential functions in devices ranging from smart phones, batteries, wind turbines and solar cells to electric vehicles. Techmetals are thus essential enablers of a future circular, low carbon economy and demand for many is increasing rapidly. E.g., to meet the UK's 2050 ambition for offshore wind turbines will require 10 years' worth of global neodymium production. To replace all UK-based vehicles with electric vehicles would require 200% of cobalt and 75% of lithium currently produced globally each year. The UK is 100% reliant on imports of techmetals including from countries that represent geopolitical risks. Some techmetals are therefore called Critical Raw Materials (high economic importance and high risk of supply disruption). Only four of the 27 raw materials considered critical by the EU have an end-of-life recycling input rate higher than 10%. Our UKRI TechMet CE Centre brings together for the first time world-leading researchers to maximise opportunities around the provision of techmetals from primary and secondary sources, and lead materials stewardship, creating a National Techmetals Circular Economy Roadmap to accelerate us towards a circular economy. This will help the UK meet its Industrial Strategy Clean Growth agenda and its ambitious UK 2050 climate change targets with secure and environmentally-acceptable supplies of techmetals. There are many challenges to a future techmetal circular economy. With growing demand, new mining is needed and we must keep the environmental footprint of this primary production as low as possible. Materials stewardship of techmetals is difficult because their fate is often difficult to track. Most arrive in the UK 'hidden' in complex products from which they are difficult to recover. Collection is inefficient, consumers may not feel incentivised to recycle, and policy and legislative initiatives such as Extended Producer Responsibility focus on large volume metals rather than small quantity techmetals. There is a lack of end-to-end visibility and connection between different parts of techmetal value chains. The TechMet consortium brings together the Universities of Exeter, Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester and the British Geological Survey who are already working on how to improve the raw materials cycle, manufacture goods to be re-used and recycled, recycle complex goods such as batteries and use and re-use equipment for as long as possible before it needs recycling. One of our first tasks is to track the current flows of techmetals through the UK economy, which although fundamental, is poorly known. The Centre will conduct new interdisciplinary research on interventions to improve each stage in the cycle and join up the value chain - raw materials can be newly mined and recycled, and manufacturing technology can be linked directly to re-use and recycling. The environmental footprint of our techmetals will be evaluated. Business, regulatory and social experts will recommend how the UK can best put all these stages together to make a new techmetals circular economy and produce a strategy for its implementation.

The global hydrogen generation market is valued at $115.25 billion in 2017 and is projected to grow to $154.74 billion by 2022 [Global Outlook & Trends for Hydrogen, IEA, 2017]. We are witnessing significant market opportunities emerging for hydrogen technologies today. New and existing hydrogen technology developments and market activities are projected to intensify over the coming decade. Sustainable hydrogen solutions are a key pathway for decarbonising transport, heat and power generation sectors. Common challenges to sustainable hydrogen being adopted across these sectors are: - Cost reduction - Safety - Systems level and multisectoral innovations - Managing change Over the next decade innovative solutions are needed to tackle the above challenges, but it will be impossible without a dedicated mechanism to train doctoral Energy Innovation Leaders. These leaders should have a firm grasp of the technology from scientific fundamentals through to applied engineering and a solid understanding of the techno-economic barriers and an appreciation of the societal issues that will impact on the translation of disruptive technologies from research labs through to market. This goes beyond being multidisciplinary, but is a transdisciplinary training, reflecting the translation steps from understanding market driven needs, planning and conducting appropriate basic and applied research to products/solutions/system development through to successful market penetration. This is delivered by a cohort training approach through the cross fertilisation of ideas of a cohort with a diverse background, peer-demonstration of the value of research across a diverse range of stakeholder-led projects, thus facilitating a peer-to-peer transdisciplinary learning culture. The SusHy Consortium, led by Gavin Walker, continues a long running and highly successful collaboration in hydrogen research between the Universities of Nottingham, Loughborough, and Birmingham (UoN, LU, UoB) which started over a decade ago with the Midlands Energy Consortium. The Midlands Energy Graduate School spawned two successful CDTs (Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their Applications and the current Fuel Cells and their Fuels). The current proposal for a CDT in Sustainable Hydrogen brings together the world leading expertise in hydrogen generation, purification, sensors/monitoring, and storage, along with whole systems issues (resilience engineering, business economic models and life cycle analysis) which exist across the three Universities. A gap in the consortium expertise is in the research field of hydrogen safety and we identified the internationally-renowned Hydrogen Safety Engineering and Research Centre (HySAFER) at Ulster University (UU) as the right partner to deliver on this key aspect. This is the first broad collaboration in the world seeking to investigate, train researchers and produce leaders in Sustainable Hydrogen. Stakeholder Partnerships. A key strength of this CDT is the active involvement of the Stakeholders in co-creation of the training programme which is reciprocated in the value with which the Stakeholders view of the CDT. This shared vision of a training partnership between the Universities and Stakeholders will lead to the smooth function of the CDT with not just a high-quality training programme, but a programme that is tailored to the sector needs for high-quality, industry-ready doctoral Energy Innovation Leaders. The valued CDT-stakeholder partnership will also be a significant appeal to candidates interested in energy-related PhDs and will be used to help market the CDT programme to a diverse talent pool.

The cost of Li-ion batteries (LIBs) is presently the largest barrier to the electrification of road transport. Battery pack cost needs to be halved to $125/kWh (USABC target) in order to get electric vehicles (EVs) ready for mass market penetration by 2040, thereby helping the UK to meet its legislated emission reduction target of 80% for 2050. Meanwhile, the energy and power density of LIBs also need to be significantly increased to reduce the consumers' range anxiety. Transport in the electrolyte plays a key role in determining the cost, performance and lifetime of a LIB cell, and can be linked to all the above key barriers to mass EV adoption. Particularly, transport in the electrolyte has been found to become the major limiting mechanism to the high-power operation of LIBs, as well as to the pursuit of thick electrodes which is being widely considered as a near-term solution to energy density increase and cost reduction for EV batteries. However, the present LIB designs with static electrolytes provide little room for improving and engineering the electrolyte-side transport processes. Therefore, radical innovations in the engineering design of LIB cells are urgently needed to address the electrolyte-side limitations to meet ever fast increasing performance of electrode active materials. Relying on the unique features of microfluidics including easy integration, rapid heat and mass transfer and precision control, this Fellowship aims to develop a novel microfluidic-based approach to engineering the transport processes in the electrolyte of LIBs, with the goal of improving cell energy and power density and reducing cost. To achieve this aim, the Fellowship will first combine integrated microfluidics and fluorescence microscopy to develop an easily accessible, multiscale, multichannel tool for characterising the coupled thermal-hydro-electrochemical dynamics and its interplay with electrode microstructures in a LIB cell during operation, underpinning further technological innovations. The Fellowship will then conduct a systematic model-based parametric study to develop directional microfluidic designs for LIB cells and to develop microfluidic principles for manipulating the fluid flow, local composition, temperature and electrochemical processes in the new cell design for optimal performance. The Fellowship will finally explore high-efficiency upscaling strategies for the new cell design and analyse their economic feasibilities for EV applications.

Electricity has emerged as a preferred energy vector for both conventional and renewable energy, thanks to its versatility and the vast existing electrical infrastructure. The electrification of the transport sector is a natural development to make use of energy from a wide variety of sources, and to reduce CO2 emissions and combat urban air pollution. The UK government plans to ban sale of all diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040, following similar moves by France and Germany. Globally, the number of electric vehicles (EVs) is projected to rise from about 1 million in 2015 to 300 million in 2040. Achieving these goals requires dramatically improved performance and lowered costs of batteries for EV use. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are promising, but enhanced materials for electrodes, especially the cathode, are needed to meet the power density and costs requirements for the next-generation EVs and energy storage systems. The research aims to generate fundamental knowledge and develop experimental and numerical tools for the controlled synthesis of high-performance cathode materials for LIBs with the inherent potential to be scaled to large throughput production. The materials will be based on layered, multi-element metal oxides (MOs) and carbon-metal oxides (CMOs). Among these, the nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMCs) with various metal contents and surface features, which are favoured by mainstream automotive companies, will be the main target for the research, though the research and production techniques will be applicable for a large class of MOs and CMOs. Conventionally, MOs can be produced via solid state, sol-gel, and co-precipitation methods and combinations thereof, followed by high temperature annealing processes without or with carbon coating. Such multi-step synthesis routes are time- and energy-consuming, and require delicate control of the surrounding conditions. A promising alternative is flame spray pyrolysis (FSP), in which a precursor solution is atomised to produce a large number of evaporating droplets that are carried into a heated reactor or burned with a flame to form nanoparticles. FSP can offer a one-step, high throughput, easy-to-handle, scalable and continuous process, with a wide range of precursor solutions. It allows good control and, importantly, decoupling of the production process from the gas-phase chemistry process, creating the potential to produce designer materials at scale and low cost. The project is a collaboration between Cambridge University (Simone Hochgreb in flame synthesis; Adam Boies in nanoparticle synthesis; Michael De Volder in nanomaterial and batteries) and UCL (Kai Luo in modelling and simulation). A combined experimental and numerical study will be conducted to reveal the dynamic processes of and controlling mechanisms behind particle formation, growth and coating. At the microscopic level, the detailed transport and chemical reactions will be unravelled; at the mesoscopic level, factors affecting phase change and particle growth will be identified; and at the macroscopic level, the input parameters and time scales of key processes will be linked with quality of MO and CMO products. The experiments involve cutting-edge in-situ and ex-situ measurements to qualify and quantify the synthesis process. The modelling and simulation include advanced mesoscopic simulations of droplet dynamics and evaporation; and atomistic simulations of precursor pyrolysis, particle formation and growth. The fundamental insights gained, and tools and production techniques developed will be exploited for controlled flame synthesis of materials that are directly tied to battery performance metrics, in collaboration with four companies (CATL, Echion Tech, PV3 Technologies and STFET). These companies' activities cover the technology readiness levels (TRLs) from 2 to 9, providing valuable inputs to the research and multiple routes to exploitation of research outputs.