Staffordshire Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Engineering

Themes

• Engineering, Technology and Environment

Summary

Our research addresses aspects of renewable and sustainable engineering that are key to enhancing peoples’ lives, economic growth and improving our global environment. We aim to achieve this through a strong focus on interdisciplinary collaborations motivated by a range of stakeholders including extensive engagement with industry and government agencies to ensure our research achieves maximum impact.

• Renewable and Low Carbon Energy – we design, optimise and validate novel approaches for renewable and low carbon energy with a particular focus on small scale, local energy generation and storage including: solar photovoltaic; solar heating/cooling; thermal energy storage; organic/polymeric solar cells; biogas; micro combined heat and power; liquid air energy storage; and smart grid systems.
• Sustainable Manufacturing – we develop approaches to improve productivity, reduce waste and improve the reliability of manufactured goods with a particular focus on: advanced reconfigurable and flexible automation; the application of machine learning and advanced robotics; development, optimisation and use of novel materials for manufacturing; and novel design practices.
• Sustainable Transport – we research novel approaches to transport and improvement of existing modes to improve sustainability and reduce environmental impact through: industrial design; novel materials; autonomy; control, optimisation and condition monitoring of engine performance.

• Feasibility study for developing large scale narrow band gap polymeric solar cell: Technical challenges and life cycle economic
• The micro turbine renewable energy combustor (MiTREC)
• Universities resilient to climate change: Public awareness, sustainable education, and technology development as principal strategies towards net zero carbon campus.