Study level

  • PhD

Faculty/School

Faculty of Engineering

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Supervisors

Dr Zhaojun Han
Position
Associate Professor
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Engineering
Dr Thomas Moore
Position
Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Engineering

Overview

Renewable electricity is remarkably cheap, and is only going to get cheaper. However, existing state-of-the-art CO2 capture and conversion processes use thermal energy (typically generated by burning natural gas). This modelling project will investigate electrochemical techniques for capturing CO2 from air (direct air capture) and converting it to useful chemicals and materials.

Research activities

The student will develop physics and process models of electrochemical CO2 capture and conversion processes, in collaboration with experimentalists.

Outcomes

  • Develop an understanding of tradeoffs in system design involving mass transfer, energy use, and system size.
  • Understand the role of intermittency in operation of electrochemical systems.

Skills and experience

The candidate will have skills or experience in one or more of:

  • chemical engineering
  • mechanical engineering
  • physics modelling (e.g. formulating and solving PDE models)
  • process modelling
  • applied mathematics.

Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.