Professor Yulong Ding 

Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage & School of Chemical Engineering

University of Birmingham

y.ding@bham.ac.uk 

Professor Yulong Ding holds the founding Chamberlain Chair of Chemical Engineering and is the founding Director of University of Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage. He has research interests in energy materials and energy processes with a focus on understanding multiphase transport phenomena across length scales and using the fundamental understanding to develop novel electrical and thermal energy storage technologies. 

He has published over 450 technical papers with ~350 in peer-reviewed journals (GS H-Index~73) and filed over 70+ patents. He is an inventor of liquid air energy storage technology (commercialized by Highview Power, a UK engineering company). His work on composite phase change materials has led to large scale deployment with a total installation of 300+ MW / 1.2+ GWh for cleaning heating applications (Jinhe Energy). His work on passive cooling container technology for cold chain transportation has started commercial deployment (CRRC Shijiazhuang). 

Professor Ding’s work has been recognised by the election to the fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering (2020); IChemE Clean Energy Medal (2021); IChemE Global Awards (2019) in three categories of Energy, Research Project and Outstanding Achievement; Cryogenic Energy Storage Research Chair Award (Royal Academy of Engineering, 2014), and Energy & Environment Award and Technology and Innovation Grand Prix Award (The Engineer, 2011).

He currently serves on the Molten Salts Advisory Group of the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Royal Society Net Zero Panel, IChemE Publication Medal Assessment Panel, and European Technology, and Innovation Platform Working Group on Smart Networks for Energy Transition (ETIPSNET). He is an associate editor of Energy Storage and Saving (KeAi/Elsevier) and Discovery Energy (Springer Nature) and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Energy Storage (Wiley), Journal of Thermal Science (Springer), and Particuology (Elsevier). 

Title: Composite Phase Change Materials for Heating and Cooling Decarbonisation

Abstract: Heating and cooling is regarded one of biggest challenges in energy system decarbonisation by middle of this century to achieve Net-Zero. Thermal energy storage (TES) has a pivotal role to play in such net-zero energy systems. TES consists broadly of three categories of sensible, latent, and thermochemical storage technologies. This talk concerns with the latent-heat-based TES using composite phase change materials (cPCMs). Although the cPCM-based TES technology has been in commercial deployment, important scientific and technological challenges remain, including materials, components and devices, and integration of the devices within energy networks. This requires fundamental understanding of the underlying physics particularly flow and heat transfer of multiphase systema across a very large spatial length scale from atomic/molecular level to system level. The talk will focus on cPCM materials and devices, covering both heating and cooling applications.