This project aims to develop a new technology for capturing carbon into waste rock powders that are naturally formed during mining and aggregate production operations. We aim to use mechanochemical reactions, which occur during rock crushing, to permanently trap CO2 from industrial exhaust gases as a means of carbon capture. During crushing, energy is instantaneously released (as charged particles and photons) when the chemical bonds in the rock are broken. We use this mechanochemical energy to trap CO2. Our recent research, published in Nature Sustainability, showed that if you crush silica-rich rocks, such as granite and basalt, in CO2 gas instead of air, the CO2 can become permanently trapped, via a process of chemical sorption, within the crystal lattice of the crushed particles. This project will build on our early research. We will explore the effects of temperature, crushed particle size and initial rock water content on the amount of CO2 trapped per unit mass of crushed rock. We will also investigate gas stream composition. Our previous research used pure CO2: here we will crush rocks within realistic CO2-rich effluent gases from industries such as cement production, biomass power production, gas and hydrogen production from natural gas. We will evaluate the carbon savings from our technology using life cycle analysis. Finally, we will explore the potential for (1) the final rock powders to be used as a partial cement replacement product, and (2) co-production of valuable metals from the CO2-rich rock powders. This research project could have a major impact on our ability to meet net zero carbon targets by 2050. Worldwide, at least 40 billion tonnes of silicate-rich rocks are crushed every year by the mining and quarrying industries. If we can adapt current rock crushing processes to trap CO2, with very little extra energy expenditure (other than that used to transport the CO2), then this could be used to trap greenhouse gases from 'hard to decarbonise' industries. Based on our published early research findings, at least 0.4MtCO2 of thermally-stable and insoluble CO2 can be trapped for every 100Mt of saleable crushed aggregate. We estimate that, if this technology was developed and adopted worldwide, it could capture ~0.5% of global CO2 emissions, or 175MtCO2 annually: this is equivalent to the CO2 trapped by a mature forest the size of Germany.

Biomass - vegetation such as trees, grasses or straws - is resurging as a source of sustainable, environmentally-friendly fuel for use in power stations. This is because, when grown in a sustainable way, it is almost carbon-neutral - the carbon-doxide emitted when the biomass is burned, is readsorbed from the atmosphere during the photosynthesis of the next crop of biomass. Consequently, there is a great deal of interest in using biomass in coal-fired power stations by substituting a portion of the coal. Today, many power-stations in the UK have adopted this co-firing approach to reduce their carbon (dioxide) emissions. This is a good strategy since the biomass is burned in the very large coal power stations which have a higher efficiency than the small systems needed if the same amount of biomass was to be burned alone. However, in the power stations the coal is crushed to a fine powder in huge mills before being blown into the burners in the boiler. Most biomass does not grind or crush very well because it is springy and fibrous. Consequently, when power generators attempt to powder the biomass in the coal mills it tends to form a mat on the bottom of the mill. This has limited the amount of biomass which can be processed in the mills and hence limited the amount of biomass used in the power-stations, and hence limited the carbon savings from co-firing biomass. Some power stations have invested millions of pounds to install separate, different types of mills for cutting biomass so that they can use more - for example, up to 20% by weight is used in Fiddlers Ferry power station. Another strategy is a process known as torrefaction in which the biomass is pre-treated so that it becomes more brittle and easier to crush. This process involves heating biomass to a moderate temperature (~280 C) in the absence of air. It is similar to the process used to roast coffee beans and so is sometimes refered to as roasting biomass. During torrefaction some material is lost from the biomass - particularly moisture and some gases and volatile substances - but the material which is left, the residue, still contains typically 80% of the heating value of the original biomass, and is transformed into a harder, darker fuel, which is much easier to crush. This process is attracting a great deal of interest from all sectors involved in the bioenergy chain: - growers see this is a way of adding value to the biomass they grow and reducing transportation costs (since the fuel is dry and has a greater energy per unit volume); power-generators see this as a simpler fuel to handle in the power stations; and there is also interest in using torrefied biomass as a fuel in other conversion processes, such as biomass gasification to liquid (transport) fuels (BTL). Furthermore, torrefied biomass does not go mouldy upon storage like raw biomass and so it becomes attractive for extending the supply window for using biomass. In order for torrefaction of biomass to happen on a large scale much information is needed in order to design safe, environmentally-friendly torrefiers. This research is aimed at providing much of this information and answering these questions: What are the explosion risks within torrefiers or mills using torrefied biomass? (Fine dust can result in explosions under certain concentrations, and knowledge of these concentrations is needed in order to incorporate adequate safety design features.) What would the effluents from the process (liquid and gas) be composed of? Can the gas and vapours produced provide the heat to drive the torrefaction? How would torrefied biomass burn in the power station? It also aims to develop a tool which engineers can use to help them design the torrefier itself, so that they know what temperature is needed, and how long the biomass needs to reside within the torrefier so that an optimum fuel is produced.

The programme of research that constitutes AMIDiNe will devise analytics that link point measurement to whole system to address the increasingly problematic management of electrical load on distribution networks as the UK transitions to a low carbon energy system. Traditionally, distribution networks had no observability and power flowed from large generation plant to be consumed by customers in this 'last mile'. Now, and even more so in future, those customers are generators themselves and the large generators that once supplied them have been supplanted by intermittent renewables. This scenario has left the GB energy system in position where it is servicing smaller demands at a regional or national level but faces abrupt changes in the face of weather and group changes in load behaviour, therefore it needs to be more informed on the behaviour of distribution networks. The UK government's initiative to roll out Smart Meters across the UK by 2020 has the potential to illuminate the true nature of electricity demand at the distribution and below levels which could be used to inform network operation and planning. Increasing availability of Smart Meter data through the Data Communications Company has the potential to address this but only when placed within the context of analytical and physical models of the wider power system - unlike many recent 'Big Data' applications of machine learning, power systems applications encounter lower coverage of exemplars, feature well understood system relations but poorly understood behaviour in the face of uncertainty in established power system models. AMIDiNe sets out its analytics objectives in 3 interrelated areas, those of understanding how to incorporate analytics into existing network modelling strategies, how go from individual to group demand behavioural anticipation and the inverse problem: how to understand the constituent elements of demand aggregated to a common measurement point. Current research broadly involving Smart Metering focuses on speculative developments of future energy delivery networks and energy management strategies. Whether the objective is to provide customer analytics or automate domestic load control, the primary issue lies with understanding then acting on these data streams. Challenges that are presented by customer meter advance data include forecasting and prediction of consumption, classification or segmentation by customer behaviour group, disambiguating deferrable from non-deferrable loads and identifying changes in end use behaviour. Moving from a distribution network with enhanced visibility to augmenting an already 'smart' transmission system will need understanding of how lower resolution and possibly incomplete representations of the distribution network(s) can inform more efficient operation and planning for the transmission network in terms of control and generation capacity within the context of their existing models. Improving various distribution network functions such as distribution system state estimation, condition monitoring and service restoration is envisaged to utilise analytics to extrapolate from the current frequency of data, building on successful machine learning techniques already used in other domains. Strategic investment decisions for network infrastructure components can be made on the back of this improved information availability. These decisions could be deferred or brought forward in accordance with perceived threats to resilience posed by overloaded legacy plant in rural communities or in highly urbanised environments; similarly, operational challenges presented by renewable penetrations could be re-assessed according to their actual behaviour and its relation to network voltage and emergent protection configuration constraints.

The Centre for Doctoral Training in Green Industrial Futures (CDT-GIF) will deliver the next generation of global leaders in the energy transition, through a world-leading, interdisciplinary whole systems research and training programme to address national and global priorities to realise the green industrial revolution. The CDT-GIF is critically important, as skill shortages are currently limiting the opportunities of the green industrial revolution, adding significant risk of loss of economic and social value. For example, over 350,000 additional jobs (28% professional roles) are required to meet the demands of the current UK industrial cluster decarbonisation projects between 2025 to 2040. Therefore, there is a substantial and pressing demand for training doctoral-level graduates to fill these roles to drive R&D for industrial decarbonisation, lead critical important decarbonisation projects, and prepare future graduates for the net zero agenda. The CDT-GIF directly addresses this and is in closed alignment with the EPSRC mission inspired priority 'Engineering Net Zero' by providing an industry-guided, interdisciplinary training environment in transformative low-carbon technologies that will uniquely train 100 doctoral students, whilst leveraging significant investment from academic and industry partners. Four institutions with global standing in decarbonisation (Heriot-Watt University, Imperial College London, University of Bath and University of Sheffield) have partnered with a comprehensive range of stakeholders to ascertain the critically in-demand skills and knowledge that prospective employers are seeking to deliver net zero industries. These include technically trained on systems thinking, career ready and industry literate, and internationally connected. As a result, we have co-developed a training programme, based on three pillars, that will equip our students with these attributes, namely: (1) a cohort-based whole systems taught training programme (2) metaskills development programme (Net Zero Leadership Programme), and (3) unrivalled international opportunities to visit world-leading facilities, e.g. National Carbon Capture Centre (USA), ECCSEL (European network), Heriot-Watt Dubai campus and UNECE Sustainability Week. The training elements of the programme will run parallel to student's research in order to ensure cohesive learning within and across yearly cohorts, building peer-to-peer networks. A series of activities have been designed to foster a cohesive cohort trained in a diverse and inclusive environment that engenders a culture of environmental sustainability, research trust and responsible research and innovation. The CDT-GIF research and training programme is centred on four technological themes, with one cross-cutting systems theme: (1) Advancing carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies, (2) Green hydrogen & low carbon fuels, (3) Developing next generation CO2 removal technology, (4) Energy processes, systems integration & resource efficiency, and (5) Integrated thematic areas including socio-behavioural change, policy & regulation and net zero economics related to the four technological themes. Within these themes, students will undertake challenging & original research projects that will be co-created with industrial collaborators to discover transformative, responsible and integrated solutions to achieve net zero. Challenging and original research projects will be rooted in one of these research themes, as well as across three integrated thematic areas and supervised by >75 internationally recognised researchers with excellent track record of doctoral supervision. In summary, CDT-GIF has the capacity, expertise and unique training opportunities to deliver the most comprehensive and transformational Centre for Doctoral Training to realise the green industrial revolution.

Bioenergy provides a significant proportion of the UK's low carbon energy supply for heat, transport fuel and electricity. There is scope for bioenergy to provide much higher levels of low carbon energy in future, but this requires appropriate development of key enabling technologies and strategic management to make the best use of the valuable, but finite, biomass resource. It must also be acknowledged that there have been significant concerns raised about the long term sustainability of bioenergy systems, including the wider social and economic impacts of biomass production. This project will create a Supergen Bioenergy hub for the UK which will bring together industry, academia and other stakeholders to focus on the research and knowledge challenges associated with increasing the contribution of UK bioenergy to meet strategic environmental targets in a coherent, sustainable and cost-effective manner. It will do this by taking a "whole systems" approach to bioenergy, so that we focus on the benefits that new technologies can bring within the context of the whole production and utilisation chain. In order to ensure focused research with rapid dissemination and deployment this will be done in close collaboration with industrial partners and other stakeholders, including government agencies. The hub will also take an expressly interdisciplinary approach to bioenergy, ensuring that we address important issues, such as the impacts of land-use change not just as scientific quantification exercises, but taking due account of the social and economic impacts. The hub will carry out leading edge research to address the engineering challenges associated with bioenergy deployment, with a particular focus on enabling flexible energy vectors. Therefore we will carry out core research to address existing problems, for example increasing scientific understanding of biomass combustion to improve environmental emissions and developing torrefaction (heating the feedstock), which could improve the logistics (and therefore costs) of using biomass. However, we will also work on more strategic, long term options; using academic expertise to help industry resolve the engineering problems experienced to date with some advanced technologies like gasification and assessing the prospects for biomass-derived synthetic natural gas as a low carbon alternative to diminishing natural gas supplies and developing new technologies to produce more sustainable transport fuels from biomass. The project will progress many different bioenergy options for the UK, which have many different costs and benefits. Therefore we will particularly focus on evaluating the ecological, economic and social aspects of the bioenergy chains being developed. That will allow us to provide appropriate scientific evidence and information to government and other stakeholders to facilitate development of the most sustainable bioenergy systems for the UK.