The Engineer

Project focuses on factors that affect fuel-cell performance

News

UK and Indian researchers are to work together on a project to obtain a greater understanding of the factors that affect fuel-cell performance and durability, particularly in relation to using readily available fuels, including waste biogas.

Prof Mark Ormerod of Keele University’s Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics is heading the collaborative team of six leading research groups from the UK and India.

To fund the three-year research project — which will see the researchers model the accelerated ageing and degradation of solid oxide fuel cells — the group has been awarded around £1.35m from the EPSRC and the Indian Department of Science and Technology.

The Keele-led project is one of three proposals funded under the new RCUK UK-India Low Carbon Technology Initiative, and includes Keele, Birmingham and Loughborough universities as UK partners, and three Indian Institutes of Technology, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi and IIT Hyderabad.

The project will fund nine senior research scientists from India, as well as research students, who will make extended research visits to the UK partners.