Coal-fired generation accounts for 82% of China's total power supply. Even in the UK the coal-fired generation still accounts for 35% . Because of this, the efficient and clean burn of coal is of great importance to the energy sector. Coal gasification and the proper treatment of the generated syngas before the combustion can reduce emissions significantly through alternative power generation system such as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC). The syngas usually contains varying amounts of hydrogen. The existence of hydrogen in the syngas may cause undesirable flame flashback phenomenon, in which the flame propagates into the burner. The fast flame propagation speed of hydrogen can travel further upstream and even attached to the wall of the combustor. The strong heat transfer to the wall may damage the combustor components. The consequence can be very costly. Because of this, many existing combustors are not suitable for the burning of syngas. To overcome this bottle neck, in-depth knowledge of the flame dynamics of hydrogen enriched fuel is essential, which is still not available. There is also a need to study the flame-wall interactions, which are important to the life span of a combustor but have not been fully understood.In order to understand the complex combustion process of hydrogen enriched fuels, combined efforts from experimentation and numerical simulations are essential. This joint project will investigate the flame dynamics including the flame flashback phenomenon, combustion instability, and flame-wall interactions. The flame dynamics will be investigated for different types of burners with fuel variability. Due to the limitation of optical access, the flame measurements need to be complimented by high-fidelity numerical simulations. The dynamic behaviour of the flame will be experimentally captured by the innovative combustion diagnostic tools developed at Manchester. To complement the experimental work, advanced numerical simulations based on direct numerical simulation and large eddy simulation will be performed at Brunel. The proposed research activities are based on the existing tools developed by the investigators and preliminary studies that have already been carried out by the applicants. The project will further develop innovative combustion diagnostic and advanced numerical tools. The knowledge to be gained from the project research and the physical models to be developed including improved near-wall flow, heat transfer and combustion models can lead to better combustion control and combustor design. The joint project will enhance the understanding on combustion of hydrogen enriched fuels with scientific advancement in flame measurements and near-wall flow modelling. More importantly, it will enhance the development of technologies for clean combustion of hydrogen enriched fuels, leading to a clean coal industry.Collaboration This project has excellent synergy between the UK and Chinese partners. Both partners are linked to BP. The Manchester group is directly supported by BP AE to work on combustion instability. Tsinghua University is one of the few identified links of BP in China. The involvement of Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery Ltd will ensure the maximum input from a gas turbine manufacturer's point of view.Management Both partners have long term informal research connections and the well established communications will ensure the smoothing running of the project. The PIs are well experienced in working with large research consortia. Dr Zhang has close collaboration with the industrial partners.Novelty Valuable physical insight into the potentially damaging combustion phenomena of hydrogen enriched fuels such as syngas burning will be provided; Original combustion diagnostics will be developed; Advanced numerical simulations will be performed; Near-wall flow, heat transfer and combustion models for unsteady reacting flows will be developed.

The motivation for this proposal is that the global reliance on fossil fuels is set to increase with the rapid growth of Asian economies and major discoveries of shale gas in developed nations. The strategic vision of the IDC is to develop a world-leading Centre for Industrial Doctoral Training focussed on delivering research leaders and next-generation innovators with broad economic, societal and contextual awareness, having strong technical skills and capable of operating in multi-disciplinary teams covering a range of knowledge transfer, deployment and policy roles. They will be able to analyse the overall economic context of projects and be aware of their social and ethical implications. These skills will enable them to contribute to stimulating UK-based industry to develop next-generation technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and ultimately improve the UK's position globally through increased jobs and exports. The Centre will involve over 50 recognised academics in carbon capture & storage (CCS) and cleaner fossil energy to provide comprehensive supervisory capacity across the theme for 70 doctoral students. It will provide an innovative training programme co-created in collaboration with our industrial partners to meet their advanced skills needs. The industrial letters of support demonstrate a strong need for the proposed Centre in terms of research to be conducted and PhDs that will be produced, with 10 new companies willing to join the proposed Centre including EDF Energy, Siemens, BOC Linde and Caterpillar, together with software companies, such as ANSYS, involved with power plant and CCS simulation. We maintain strong support from our current partners that include Doosan Babcock, Alstom Power, Air Products, the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), Tata Steel, SSE, RWE npower, Johnson Matthey, E.ON, CPL Industries, Clean Coal Ltd and Innospec, together with the Biomass & Fossil Fuels Research Alliance (BF2RA), a grouping of companies across the power sector. Further, we have engaged SMEs, including CMCL Innovation, 2Co Energy, PSE and C-Capture, that have recently received Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC)/Technology Strategy Board (TSB)/ETI/EC support for CCS projects. The active involvement companies have in the research projects, make an IDC the most effective form of CDT to directly contribute to the UK maintaining a strong R&D base across the fossil energy power and allied sectors and to meet the aims of the DECC CCS Roadmap in enabling industry to define projects fitting their R&D priorities. The major technical challenges over the next 10-20 years identified by our industrial partners are: (i) implementing new, more flexible and efficient fossil fuel power plant to meet peak demand as recognised by electricity market reform incentives in the Energy Bill, with efficiency improvements involving materials challenges and maximising biomass use in coal-fired plant; (ii) deploying CCS at commercial scale for near-zero emission power plant and developing cost reduction technologies which involves improving first-generation solvent-based capture processes, developing next-generation capture processes, and understanding the impact of impurities on CO2 transport and storage; (iimaximising the potential of unconventional gas, including shale gas, 'tight' gas and syngas produced from underground coal gasification; and (iii) developing technologies for vastly reduced CO2 emissions in other industrial sectors: iron and steel making, cement, refineries, domestic fuels and small-scale diesel power generatort and These challenges match closely those defined in EPSRC's Priority Area of 'CCS and cleaner fossil energy'. Further, they cover biomass firing in conventional plant defined in the Bioenergy Priority Area, where specific issues concern erosion, corrosion, slagging, fouling and overall supply chain economics.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Ceramics are an important group of materials and their processing into aerospace coatings and components requires specialist techniques. Current methodologies for new materials discovery and development are wasteful, energy inefficient, and not representative of the production scale environment. This Early Career Fellowship in the priority area of Advanced Materials Engineering will demonstrate that new ceramic compositions can be processed from liquids with a high power, high efficiency and high velocity three cathode plasma source with axial injection as the primary technique. My vision is to establish modelling tools and advanced materials processing techniques that will enable the design and manufacture of advanced ceramic coatings and components with tailored microstructure with thermal, electrical and environmental barrier properties fine-tuned to their desired applications. This will enable unique microstructure of ceramic coatings coupled with fine-tuned thermal, environmental and electrical properties for thermal barrier coatings in the aero gas turbines, environmental barrier coatings for ceramic matrix composites in those turbines, electrolytes for fuel cells and solar cells in auxiliary power generation for electric aircraft, dielectric coatings for aero electric motors, wear and high temperature oxidation and corrosion resistant coatings for various critical components in the aero-engine. To facilitate widespread industrial uptake, I will develop a new high throughput process with reduced waste and improved sustainability based on high power, high velocity plasma, enabling the production of tailored ceramic coatings and components of the required nanostructure and microstructure of the required pore architecture in large volumes at a fraction of a cost of current techniques. This will enable the manufacture of coatings with bespoke compositions and provide unprecedented control of pore size, shape, fraction and distribution which are essential for thermal, environmental and electrical properties of these coatings. The integrated approach to materials discovery and manufacture will lead to creation of products for the aerospace industry with improved properties, performances and reduced materials processing times, in line with the aims of the fellowship priority area.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.