Energy & power generation
Producing and distributing clean and sustainable energy is one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. With its necessity to tackling the effects of climate change and dwindling of non-renewable resources, its importance is sociological and political as well as economic. Your company may be concerned with carbon emissions from fossils fuels, or perhaps seeking to increase the efficiency of solar panels, extending the lifetime of nuclear power plants, or developing on-board hydrogen-storage devices or novel biofuel cells. Whatever your area, materials are almost certainly involved, and innovative ideas about improving materials with the aid of modelling and theory are likely to be relevant to you.
Our case studies give examples of collaborative projects in Energy and Power Generation between TYC groups and industry or government organisations.
Examples of materials modelling research in energy generation, storage, and distribution at TYC include:
- Efficient sequestration of carbon dioxide
- Improving the conduction properties of solid oxide fuel cells
- Enhancing the efficiency of organic semiconductors for solar cells
- Searching for hydrogen-storage materials with good energy/weight ratio
- Increasing the operating temperature of gas turbines with better thermal barrier coatings
- Developing advanced materials for lithium batteries
- Controlling fuel-cladding interactions in fission reactors
- Improving resistance to radiation damage in nuclear reactors
- Assessing options for nuclear waste disposal
- Design of first-wall materials for future fusion reactors
- Bio-inspired nano-structured materials for improved batteries