Appointment of Dr Marcus Newborough, CEng FEI, FREng as a Visiting Professor

The University of Bath’s Department of Chemical Engineering is delighted to announce that Marcus Newborough, Development Director, ITM Power PLC (https://itm-power.com) will be appointed as a Visiting Professor from 1 November 2022.  He will continue to work closely with Professor Tim Mays in the Department, and other colleagues on campus, with a focus on sustainable hydrogen engineering.  This will include supporting Tim in building a national EPSRC Hub for Research in Hydrogen and Alternative Liquid Fuels (UK-HyRES, https://ukhyres.co.uk) to be based at the University.

Notes

1. Following his PhD at Cranfield Institute of Technology in 1987 Marcus Newborough has had a successful career in sustainable engineering in industry and as an academic.  He joined ITM in 2006 and was appointed to his current senior role at the company in 2009.  Marcus is a Chartered Engineer (CEng, 1991), Fellow of the Energy Institute (FEI, 2010) and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng, 2013).

2. ITM is a world-leading company in the manufacture of proton-exchange membrane (PEM) units to produce green hydrogen via water electrolysis for low carbon electricity, heat and mobility and for industrial decarbonisation.  The company floated on the Alternative Investment Market in 2004 becoming the first hydrogen company to be publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).  The LSE has also granted the company a Green Economy Mark.  In August 2021 the Business Secretary opened ITM’s “Giga Factory” in Sheffield (the world’s largest PEM electrolyser plant) and at the same event launched the UK’s Hydrogen Strategy (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-hydrogen-strategy).

Theme 4 – Alternative Liquid Fuels

Alternative liquid fuels (ALFs) such as ammonia are increasingly regarded as a key component of the future energy mix towards the net zero imperative. Through our launch workshop, you also told us that alternative liquid fuels was one of the major areas that you wanted to discuss. On the 20th July UK-HyRES held the fourth themed workshop focused on the research challenges, future vision and opportunities surrounding ammonia and alternative liquid fuels to answer that call.

Discussion focused not only around ammonia but also of some other alternatives such as ethanol, methanol and formic acid. In the workshop we first watched an insight talk by Josh Makepeace (University of Birmingham) who set out the background of ammonia and why it is so promising, including how the related fuel cell technologies might look. We also heard from Laura Torrente-Murciano (University of Cambridge) who explored the reasons why ALFs are needed, remarking “We need novel integrated energy systems taking into consideration energy supply and demand profiles”.

With safety a common discussion throughout all of our workshops, we later heard from Stuart Hawksworth (Head, Centre for Energy and Major Hazards, Health & Safety Executive & President, International Association for Hydrogen Safety). He reminded us that “safety can not be an afterthought” and that we need to think smarter about safety and develop new evidence based standards. John Irvine (University of St Andrews) gave the final insight talk, with his perspective on the future vision for alternative liquid fuels and green ammonia, highlighting the particular industrial interest in ammonia for shipping.

The Collective expertly facilitated the session to allow attendees to debate key questions designed to determine the research challenges and the opportunities, framed around the Theory of Change.

The UK-HyRES team would like to particularly thank our invited speakers for their insightful contributions as well as all attendees. Developing a UK Centre of Excellence would not be possible without this fantastic engagement.

The research team will now start work analysing the comments and outputs, with the final outcomes published on our website in the coming weeks.

Thanks again for all participation, don’t forget our next event takes place on the 15th September, in-person, at the University of Warwick. A Research Challenges Showcase, we plan to discuss the steps forward, present our findings and continue the conversation. Registration details will available on our Events page in due course.

A recording of the workshop is available below, you can also download the workshop slide deck and view all the insight talks.

Download the report

Read more about the Production workshop >>

Read more about the Storage workshop >>

Please download a personal letter from Prof Tim Mays, Director and PI of UK-HyRES, confirming early details of the new EPSRC Hub.   We are especially keen to ”spread the message” far and wide, including to individuals and organisations who may not be aware of UK-HyRES nor the opportunities of association.  In which case would you please forward the letter to your networks.  We appreciate the risks (and sincerely apologise for) any x-posting. 

Thank you and kind regards,

UK-HyRES Administration Team

We are delighted to finally be able to announce, after receiving excellent feedback from the EPSRC, that the UK-HyRES Hub proposal was successful and we have now formally begun our initial five year funding window (June 2023 – June 2028) . Once again many thanks to the entire community for supporting us in putting together this ambitious research hub. Please bear with us as we begin this second phase, further details will be released soon. We are particularly focused on updating the community on our substantial flexible project fund and developing ways we can work together to deliver tangible impact.

Read the UKRI press release >

Read the University of Bath Press Release >

Read the University of Warwick Press Release >

Read The University of Sheffield Press Release

We are pleased to announce, following the positive feedback received from the EPSRC, that the UK-HyRES Hub proposal has been successful. As a result, we have officially commenced our initial five-year funding period.

We would like to express our gratitude to the entire community for their support in creating this ambitious research hub. We kindly ask for your patience as we enter this next phase, as more information will be shared soon. Our main priority is to provide the community with updates on our significant flexible project fund and explore collaborative opportunities to achieve real-world impact.

1. New member of the Carbon Trust’s CHIP (Clean Hydrogen Innovation Programme) Advisory Committee.
2. Attended by invitation a Net Zero meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Western Gateway in Portcullis House, Westminster on 11/7/23.
3. Attended by invitation a meeting of the US/UK R&D Action Plan Working Group 2 (reactor technologies) Nuclear Hydrogen Modelling Workshop on 11/7/23.
4. Joined DESNZ’s new Hydrogen Delivery Council’s Jobs, Skills and Supply Chains Working Group on 11/7/23.

On the 9th June Professor Tim Mays was the invited plenary speaker at the Western Gateway’s Hydrogen Conference at the ICC in Newport, Wales on 9/6/23.

Prof. Tim Mays has been appointed as Theme Lead and Co-I of ZENITH, the new EPSRC Prosperity Partnership with GKN Aerospace (ref: EP/X025403/1) that focuses on hydrogen storage in future aircraft. Read more at UKRI

FUTURE PERSPECTIVE | EDINBURGH

EDINBURGH | 20/04/23

UK-HyRES held its latest hydrogen community engagement meeting, “Future Perspective”, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on Thursday 20 April 2023.

Aims and Objectives

• A look forward to the Hub and to share details
• To hear leading expert perspectives on the future of hydrogen and alternative liquid fuel research
• To emphasis the Hub structures strategic alignment to the future direction of research (technical and cross-cutting)
• To network and build collaborations and partnerships

Over 60 delegates convened to hear a range of national and international speakers.

Gus MacIntosh (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) gave an opening address and shared the department’s future strategy and reminded us of the importance of cross-sector collaboration, commenting “You can’t work in a silo when you’re trying to change the global energy system”.

Prof Martin Dornheim (Leverhulme International Professor for Hydrogen Storage Materials and Systems, University of Nottingham) delivered the first talk, which focused on his research in solid state metal hydride storage systems.

Prof. Dornheim presents in Edinburgh 2023.

Invited international speaker Dr. Peter Holtappels (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) discussed electrochemical processes for Power2X and E-fuels, highlighting the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) and the StoRIES project, which aims to build a storage research infrastructure ecosystem.

Prof. Holtappels presents in Edinburgh 2023.

Professor Jennifer Wen (Professor in Energy Resilience, University of Surrey) focused on her perspective of the safety challenges and her research into ignition and flames, reaffirming “It is so important to address safety across the entire H2 value chain”.

Prof. Wen presents in Edinburgh 2023.

Jon Harman (Technology Delivery Director, Ceres Power) stressed the importance of green hydrogen production and discussed Ceres’ Solid Oxide technology and the development of the SteelCell. Reminding us that this was born from a university spin-out and the importance of research.

Jon Harman presents in Edinburgh 2023.

Prof Anthony Kucernak (Professor of Physical Chemistry, Imperial College London) shared a fantastic pre-recorded talk as he was currently away. He reminded us to not only look at the small scale and also to think creatively. Prof. Kucernak highlighted his research that showed that you can reduce the cost of hydrogen by valorising waste streams and producing valuable secondary products.

Prof Andresen presents in Edinburgh 2023.

Our final talk was delivered by Prof. John Andresen (Heriot-Watt University) who focused on the industrial decarbonisation challenge, emphasising the point that the industrial sector is responsible for 9% UK GDP, 2.5 million direct jobs, 16% UK emissions and will need 2 million more green jobs by 2030.

Nigel Holmes (Scottish Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Association) chaired a lively afternoon panel discussion which was a look at the future hydrogen economy. Panellists included Prof John Irvine (University of St Andrews), Prof Joan Cordiner (University of Sheffield), Alan Mortimer (Development Director, Eneus Energy Ltd) and Dr Peter Forman (Northumbria University). Prof Irvine reminded us all that “Tomorrow’s technology is today’s research” and that we should challenge ourselves to go further than Net Zero and aim for a carbon negative system. Prof Mays rounded the day off with his vision for the proposed hub and his hope, that together, we can overcome challenges, deliver net zero and build a future hydrogen economy.

Panel discussion Edinburgh 2023.

The UK Hydrogen Champion engaged with stakeholders across the hydrogen value chain between July and December 2022.

This report summarises their findings and makes recommendations for government and industry to accelerate the growth of the hydrogen sector.

The UK Hydrogen Champion, Jane Toogood, was appointed in July 2022 as an independent advisor to government and industry on the development of the UK hydrogen economy. Read the report