Conference Schedule

Day1: October 5, 2018

Keynote Forum

Biography

Lyudmila M Bronstein is a Senior Scientist at the Department of Chemistry, Indiana University. During her research career, she published over 210 papers, reviews, and book chapters. Her research program focuses on developing new materials with important applications in the fields of energy, catalysis, and life sciences. Her research group has been working on making solid polymer electrolytes for Li ion batteries with enhanced performance, efficient and selective catalytic systems based on polymers, dendrimers, and mesoporous solids, and multifunctional magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

 

 

Abstract

Biomass conversion plays a tremendous role in obtaining value-added chemicals and fuels from renewable sources without use of petrochemicals. In the last decade magnetically recoverable catalysts have received considerable attention due to more environmentally friendly processes, conservation of energy, and cheaper target products. In this talk author will discuss the use of magnetically recoverable catalysts for biomass and biooil related processes, including transformations of cellulose to value-added chemicals, syngas (produced by bio-oil pyrolysis) to methanol and methanol to hydrocarbons (fuels) as well as bio-oil hydrogenation to important chemicals. Figure 1 shows high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) image of the magnetic zeolite containing Ni nanoparticles (left), its energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) map (superposition of Fe and Ni maps, center), and the methanol-to-hydrocarbon (MTH) reaction pathway (right). Modifying the iron oxide (magnetite, Fe3O4) amounts, we were able to control the catalyst activity and the product distribution in MTH. The modification of zeolites with Ni nanoparticles allowed us to significantly improve the catalyst stability due to diminishing coke formation and disordering of the coke formed. As is relevant to many catalytic systems, it will be demonstrated that the presence of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles can enhance catalytic activity or change the reaction mechanism, allowing for more valuable products. In some instances, however, the presence of iron oxide can be detrimental due to side reactions. In such a case, a proper iron oxide nanoparticle protection/stabilization is required to suppress side reactions. 

Biography

Charles William Dunnill is now a Senior Lecturer at the Energy Safety Research Institute at Swansea University. He has completed MSc in Chemistry from Nottingham and PhD in Nanomaterial’s from Glasgow University. His previous posts at UCL Chemistry include a prestigious Ramsay Fellowship and a Post-doc in photocatalytic self-cleaning materials and photocatalysts. He runs a team of researchers interested in the sustainable hydrogen innovation and technology

Abstract

As the world turns towards a renewable energy dominated energy landscape, the storage of intermittent energy becomes ever more important. Balancing supply and demand is crucial with many intermittent sources not correlating with user requirements. Additionally the energy landscape is changing from a traditional, one to many approach where one power station delivers energy to a multitude of houses and businesses, to more distributive many to many approach where the network is highly complex with multiple sources big and small feeding into the system and many consumers all needing to be balanced. This talk will look at how hydrogen holds a potential solution to decoupling of supply and demand and the reconfiguration of the network. All renewable energy sources that are not immediately consumed can be converted into hydrogen which acts as a universal energy vector storing and distributing the energy where needed. We will show how new water splitting technology can achieve low cost, high efficiency energy transition and how a green hydrogen smart grid has been operated in Swansea. We will also look at potential projects around the world that could benefit from installations

Biography

Fang Wang is a Professor in Sichuan Agricultural University, has rich experiences in agriculture circular economy, both theoretically and practically. She devoted herself for the development of agricultural circular economy in Southwest of China in her years of teaching and research

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: Under the constraints of resources and environment, the livestock husbandry in China stays at a critical stage of its transformation and upgrading. Facing with the inevitability of scale development and the severity of livestock waste pollution, the standard of the treatment of livestock and poultry manure has been increased and thus some barriers appeared, such as the increase of farmer pollution control costs, the imperfect manure trading market and so on. These barriers hinder the development of animal husbandry in China. The Chinese government invites private actors to enter the field of rural waste resources reused policy implementation. In such a situation, where a former hierarchical political system becomes organized more horizontally, the question emerges how the transformation in more horizontal structures can be brought about and how do actors get into contact so that they create these institutional arrangements that are needed for more sustainably to govern the waste reused? In this paper, the purpose is to analyze a new institutional structure that was created by four actors and examine the development of new horizontal structures on one level of analysis.

 

Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: Under the framework of institutional economics, the analysis will look at the role of the broker in creating such new horizontal connections based on a case analysis of Qionglai Lvhuan cooperative, which is one of the first brokerage cooperatives in China. This cooperative has developed out of market demands, specialized to transport and distribution of livestock and poultry waste.

Findings: Based on the case analysis, we found that this new institutional structure caused to reduce the farmers pollution cost, increase the cooperatives profit, enhance farmers economic benefits, recycle and reuse the fecal waste, improve soil quality, supply more safety and quality agricultural products and decrease government environmental burden. Also, there still exist some problems needing to resolve in the future, such as manure fertilizer quality needs to be improved, transportation networks are to be reasonably built and so on.

Conclusion & Significance: The institutional structure has been playing an important role in overcoming the barriers that hinder the development of animal husbandry in China. Thus all actors would make concerted efforts to promote it more widely. The finding of this study may also suggest new directions for research to determine the optimal price and equilibrium of brokerage cooperatives’ market

Tracks

  • Renewable Energy | Solar Energy | Energy Storage | Photovoltaics | Waste to Energy | Biomass | Energy Storage | Hydrogen Economy Wind Energy | Hydropower | Bio Fuels
Location: Silverstone

Biography

Muhammad Burhan is working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Water Desalination and Reuse Center of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. He has completed his PhD degree from the National University Singapore (NUS) in 2016. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Lahore, Pakistan in 2011. To date, he has published 17 peer-reviewed journal papers. He also received two best paper awards in international conferences

Abstract

Solar energy being intermittent in nature can provide a sustainable, steady and high density energy source when converted into electrolytic hydrogen. However, in current photovoltaic market trend with 99% conventional single junction PV panels, this cannot be achieved efficiently and economically. The advent of the multi-junction solar cells (MJCs) with cell-efficiency exceeding 46%, has yet to receive wide spread acceptance in the current PV market in form of concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) system, because of its system design complexity, limiting its application scope and customers. The objective of this paper is to develop a low cost compact CPV system that will not only eliminate its application and installation related restrictions but it is also introducing a highly efficient and sustainable photovoltaic system for common consumer, to convert intermittent sunlight into green hydrogen. The developed CPV system negates the common conviction by showing two times more power output than the flat plate PV, in tropical region. In addition, sunlight to hydrogen conversion efficiency of 18% is recorded for CPV, which is two times higher than alone electricity production efficiency of flat plate PV.

 

Biography

Michael E A Warwick is an Inorganic Materials Chemist. His research focuses on the development of novel materials for photocatalytic water splitting for the production of hydrogen. He has spent two years researching photoactive semiconductor materials at University of Padova, Italy focusing primarily on the synthesizing Fe2O3 nanostructures and analyzing their potential for water splitting. His current research focuses on the production of biphasic Janus type nanocomposites for solar energy harvesting.

 

Abstract

There is a rapidly increasing need for green hydrogen for use as an energy vector, a raw material in industrial processes and for the utilization of captured CO2. Despite making up 70% of the mass in the universe hydrogen is not abundant on the earth in its gaseous di-hydrogen (H2) form. This is due to its low mass and buoyancy allowing it to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull and dissipate into the Universe. Currently 96% of the hydrogen produced and used in the world derives from fossil fuels and as a result leads to the production of substantial amounts of CO2. While carbon capture can be used to mitigate this, it is preferable to discover new green routes for H2 production, especially if it is to be used as a precursor for CO2 conversion and utilization. As a key constituent of water, hydrogen atoms are highly abundant in our oceans, allowing for vast hydrogen reserves. Obtaining hydrogen from water is an energy intensive process requiring an electrical charge, either from an electrical supply or a photocatalytic reaction. The use of photocatalysts for the splitting of water provides a direct route from solar energy to hydrogen. In this work a novel approach using soluble substrates and sequential layering processes to produce Fe2O3 based Janus nanoparticles is considered. The method allows the combination of two materials with suitable band gaps to be combined giving a single particle with dual functionality. It is hoped that this approach can be developed to produce a viable photocatalyst for the splitting of water. The particles are produced by dip coating and a carefully characterized for their structural, optical and compositional properties through a range of techniques and the photocatalytic properties are tested by gas chromatography of the evolved gases on exposure to visible light.

Biography

Cecile Charbonneau is working as a Senior Lecturer for Swansea University. Her international experience includes various programs, contributions and participation in different countries for diverse fields of study. Her research interests reflect in her wide range of publications in various national and international journals

Abstract

Lead halide perovskite solar cells have been the focus of interest of scientists in 3rd generation solar energy sector for just over 5 years. Yet, certified energy conversion efficiency rate up to 22.7% (KRICT, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology) and stability records over 1000 hours (NREL, US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory) have already been reported for small photovoltaic (PV) cells. This places emerging perovskite lead halide technology at the forefront of future PV technology. Large scale manufacturing of modules is underway but still faces a number of challenges owing to the very small thickness of the active layers and materials low tolerance for processing conditions. In this work, we address some of the issues related to the fabrication of thin electron collection TiO2 compact and mesoporous layers. Colloids containing small nanoparticles of anatase TiO2 (aqueous synthesis at 80 °C, Patm, 30 mins) are used as precursors for the UV-Vis processing of compact and porous TiO2 semiconductor layers, at temperatures compatible with the use of flexible metal or plastic substrates. The role of additive oxalic acid on the formation and properties of these films is investigated. Finally, these colloids are used as media for ink-jet printing of patterned TiO2 semiconductor layers, a feature currently required for optimizing the efficiency of glass-based lead-halide perovskite modules.

 

Biography

Istvan Lazar has completed his PhD at the University Debrecen. He is Senior Lecturer in Faculty of Science and Technology in Department of Meteorology at University of Debrecen. He has published more than 30 papers in reputed journals. His research topic is wind and solar energy and wind climatology. He is a member of many professional organizations like Hungarian Meteorological Society, European Association of Geographers and Hungarian Academy of Science (Meteorological Committee, Atmospheric Energy Subcommittee).

 

 

Abstract

Rapid technical development of photovoltaic systems makes possible to convert solar energy into electricity in a way that is much more effective than decades before. However, there are many factors that can reduce the effectiveness of the functioning of photovoltaic (PV) systems. From the numerous factors we deal with climatic ones are in the frame of the present study. Climatic factors can act on local and micro climatic scale. Local scale refers to processes occur in the atmospheric bubble over the settlements called urban boundary layer (UBL). Air pollution leads to a significant (one, or in extreme cases two orders of magnitudes) increase in the atmospheric aerosol concentrations what causes increasing optical depth within the UBL. This process leads to a decrease in solar irradiation by upto 20%. Microclimate scale factors appear within the closest (100 meters wide at a maximum) environment of the mounted solar panel systems. First one to mention is sky view factor (SVF) that represents the ratio between the visible sky and a hemisphere centered over a point on the surface of the earth, trees, buildings etc., can reduce SVF remarkably in the environment of PV systems that result in lower electricity production. Other micro scale issue is the thermodynamic behavior (warming up) of the closest environment of the solar panels which can result in great differences in the performance of PV systems mounted on roofs and on ground. Disadvantageous combinations of technical parameters and climatic factors can lead to a decrease of 30-40% of the performance of solar panel systems elongating the payback time of the investments.

 

 

 

Biography

Daniel R Jones is working as Senior Lecturer for Swansea University His international experience includes various programs, contributions and participation in different countries for diverse fields of study. His research interests reflect in his wide range of publications in various national and international journals

 

Abstract

With levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeding 400 ppm for the first time, it is becoming increasingly vital to implement a low-carbon strategy in all avenues of daily life. To this end, there has been significant recent interest in the domestic use of hydrogen-enriched natural gas (HENG), in place of the conventional natural gas currently used in businesses and homes. Due to the disparate properties of hydrogen and natural gas, however, it is not possible to incorporate too high a percentage of hydrogen into the supply without a major overhaul of existing end-use appliances; for this reason, our study explores the maximum proportion of hydrogen in HENG which may be achieved within the present-day infrastructure. A meta-analysis of existing combustion models has been conducted to determine the maximum theoretical percentage of hydrogen in HENG that is compatible with typical contemporary natural gas appliances. The stability of a burner is tested experimentally using varying HENG composition and air-to-fuel ratio, in addition to changing the diameter of the burner ports. A theoretical maximum of approximately 35 mol% was predicted for the proportion of hydrogen in HENG; above this value, flash-back was expected to occur during extinction of the flame. Flame stability was demonstrated experimentally for hydrogen percentages approaching this predicted limit, even in the case of atypically large port diameters of more than 2 mm. Having verified the limits of HENG composition to ensure safe, effective and reliable appliance operation, the possibility of a real world adoption of HENG in place of natural gas has been demonstrated. The benefits of such a changeover are expected to be significant; supplying houses with HENG fuel contains 30 mol% hydrogen, for instance, would decrease household carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 11-18%

Biography

Rome Bertrand is a final year PhD student at the Energy Safety Research Institute in Swansea University. His present research focus is in hydrogen production from sun-light and water, using multi-phase materials active for visible-light photocatalytic water-splitting. With a broader interest in renewable energies, he has previously achieved Master in Chemical and Materials Engineering in co-diploma at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He also conducted earlier a photochemistry research project in Lisbon at the UNL-FCT on self-assembly of gold-based supramolecular hydrogels.

 

 

Abstract

A composite assembly (from two to four-phase material) of (CoPi/)BiVO4/CdS(/MoS2) in the form of Janus nanoparticles was synthesised by a novel sequential layering deposition technique with high versatility. The structure aimed at combining the benefits of different materials synergies to enhance their photocatalytic activity towards visible-light water-splitting from the pure, neutral pH suspension without sacrificial reagents. A thin film of BiVO4 nanoparticles (optionally pre-functionalised with 1 wt% of photodeposited surface co-catalyst CoPi) was first deposited on an Al substrate via electrophoretic drift in iodine-acetone media, followed by a second thin layer of drop-casted CdS sol with surface stabilising additives. The CdS sol was then reacted in-situ to form an intimate junction with the BiVO4 seed layer, subsequently recovered as a composite powder by rubbing, and further annealed under inert atmosphere to tune its crystallites phase and size for improved photocatalytic activity. An additional photodeposition of 1 wt% MoS2 as surface co-catalyst was also tested, achieving the four-phase composite powder. The products were studied by traditional characterisation techniques: SEM, EDX, XRD, DRS, and BET; and the photocatalytic activity assessed by online gas chromatography. The apparent quantum yields of each material combination were compared, which gave experimental proof of the validity of the system and of its novel layer-to-powder synthesis concept for high versatility Janus particles preparation.

 

Biography

Maricelly Martinez holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of America, Bogotá in 2012 and a Master's degree in Petroleum Engineering from National University of Colombia at Medellin in 2015. She has the experience of the production of bioproducts for the energy field. She joined the Biomass Technology Laboratory of University of Sherbrooke, Canada in August 2016 to do a PhD on the conversion of sugars of biomass into biobutanol by a thermochemical process.

 

Abstract

Production of methyl levulinate (ML) and levulinic acid (LA) through a direct conversion of α-cellulose and raw biomass in methanol was realized. The effect of acid concentration (0.04-0.24 mol/L), reaction time (0.5-7 hours), cellulose concentration (2.5-12% wt.) and temperature (180-200°C) for the conversion of α-cellulose and raw biomass to methyl levulinate and levulinic acid was analyzed with a central composite design (CCD) using the response surface methodology (RSM). Three dependent responses (ML yield, LA yield and residues yield) were studied to determine the optimum combination of the four factors. Results showed that the optimal conditions involved an acid concentration of 0.1796 mol/L, a biomass concentration of 2.5 wt% and a reaction time of 4.21 hours at 200°C. These conditions lead to a theoretical yield of methyl levulinate and levulinic acid of 68.14% and 14.30% respectively and experimental yield for methyl levulinate, levulinic acid and residues yield were 62.0%, 15.95% and 11.2% respectively. 

Day2: October 6, 2018

Keynote Forum

Tracks