Mapping the UK and Chinese Energy Materials Research

This project aimed to map the UK and Chinese energy materials research groups and to facilitate new sustainable UK/China partnerships between universities and research institutes in low-carbon energy materials R&D.

Energy materials play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions and achieving a sustainable energy supply chain of power generation, transmission and energy efficiency. Energy materials research now ranks at the top of both the UK and Chinese research priority list. Both governments, financially and politically, support collaboration in this area.

This project is a major aid to the future collaboration between the UK and China with the aim of building a long term platform to foster the energy materials research collaboration and subsequently commercialise the research results in the energy industry. The project encourages universities/research institutes in the partnering and exchange of researchers between leading research groups.

The project was implemented through the creation of two working groups representing the UK and China in July 2008. Professor Z. Xiao Guo at UCL, who was responsible for overseeing the data mining, synthesis and organisation of the project, led the UK working group. The China working group included 8 persons from the Advanced Carbon Research Division, Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science. They collected information on the current activities in energy materials from a wide range of sources, including web-sites of the research councils, TSB, BERR, Carbon Trust, UKERC, DEFRA, ETI, Energy-related professional organisations, key universities and industrial organisations.

The result was a successful and comprehensive mapping of the research strengths of both the UK and China and has established a platform for information exchange for sustained partnering. The UK-China Energy Materials Working Group is responsible for identifying specific issues in energy materials and developing a collaboration strategy on Energy Materials. Scientists from both the UK and China have indicated readiness to implement close co-operation across a wide range of fields, including:

• the field of solar cells and solar energy conversion,
• fuel cells and hydrogen energy,
• energy storage devices (LIB, supercapacitor, and other rechargeable  batteries),
• wind and nuclear power generation.

For further information regarding this project, please contact Laurence Jia at laurence.jia@fco.gov.uk