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Overview

Dr Andrew Smallbone

Associate Professor, Deputy Director of Research


Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Associate Professor, Deputy Director of Research in the Department of Engineering+44 (0) 191 33 41715

Biography

About Me

Andrew is the Director of the EPSRC Network+ on the Decarbonisation of Heating and Cooling, Co-Director of the EPSRC Network+ on Hydrogen for Transportation (Network-H2), a Fellow of the Durham Energy Institue (DEI) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering.

He leads multi-disciplinary research teams on the decarbonisation of energy, heat, transport and industry. His expertise is in techno-economic evaluation and advanced numerical modelling as well as the development of novel engineering prototypes and hardware demonstrations.

Background

Andrew was a Principal Research Associate at Newcastle University for six years leading, coordinating and delivering multiple large scale EPSRC, Innovate UK and EU projects. 

Previously Andrew was Chief Technical Officer at CMCL Innovations in Cambridge and was responsible for developing multiple engineering software simulation tools currently used worldwide for internal combustion engine and future fuel development.

Andrew graduated from the University of Southampton in 1999 with a Mechanical Engineering degree. He then completed an M.Sc. in Combustion and Energy and then a PhD from the University of Leeds. Andrew then went on to a Post Doctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Kyushu, Japan at the 21st Century Center of Excellence. He then went on to be Research Staff at Princeton University, U.S.

Research

Andrew is currently the Principal Investigator on the £2.5m EPSRC funded CCSInSupply (EP/N024567/1) project. This work has explored the potential for decarbonising hydrogen production through gasification of biomass/waste, opportunities for green ammonia, decarbonising food production by incorporating carbon capture, utilisation and storage into fertiliser productionsorption technologies and advanced low carbon plastic production. The latter was a commended entry at the Rushlight Awards hosted at the Royal Society in January 2019.

Funded by EPSRC, H2020 and the NELEP, Andrew leads work on hydrogen for heating and transport technologies including leading two EPSRC Network+. These include developing advanced models for the analysis of integrated zero-carbon energy hubs, demonstrating advanced thermochemical district heating and cooling networks and A Zero-Emission Closed-loop linear-Joule CYcle (ZECCY) project on hydrogen energy converters.

He is has also been an Investigator on multiple industrially funded, Innovate UK and Department for Transport projects on conventional and hybrid electric vehicle powertrains. These have led to the development of an advanced free-piston engine on-board generator fuelled by gasoline and hydrogen. This technology is now being developed through the UK's Hydrogen Transport Hub Demonstration Programme for use in a marine vessel.

Andrew has worked extensively on Pumped Heat Energy Storage (PHES) technology and until 2019 was the co-Director of the National Facility of Pumped Heat Energy Storage.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Andrew has been working on liquid desiccant airborne pathogen scrubber technology.

Publications

Chapter in book

Conference Paper

Journal Article

Presentation

Supervision students