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Energy conversion

Transport in the future will increasingly be driven by smart technologies that convert clean electrical energy into mechanical energy efficiently. Likewise, generators with the capacity to perform the same function in reverse will lead to new advances in wind turbine technology.

CEEM’s researchers, in partnership with global industry leaders such as Toyota and Seagate, are at the forefront of developing more powerful – and cheaper – magnetic materials that will dramatically cut the energy wastage in current technologies, opening new markets for cleaner and more efficient cars and energy production.

Our expertise in this field is acknowledged around the world. Two powerful software packages developed by CEEM’s researchers - VAMPIRE and CASTEP – are now the go-to tools for leading companies in fields as diverse as mobile phone manufacture and data warehousing to renewable energy production and clean car technologies.

CEEM’s researchers have a global reputation for their advances in:

  • The design of improved materials for hybrid and all-electric vehicles
  • The development of new thermoelectric materials
  • All-optical thermally induced magnetic switching using synthetic ferrimagnets.

This reputation is built on a distinctive approach to research and partnership:

  • Process friendly, collaborative culture
  • First principles modelling to test, design and refine new energy efficient materials
  • High powered electron microscopy – bespoke to CEEM – to inform atomic engineering

 

Highlight research

Patently smart tools

CEEM’s quest for new materials that efficiently convert thermal energy into electricity is guided by powerful computer programming that helps them to not only target the most promising elements to investigate, but also how best to manipulate them.

The power of conversion

CEEM’s energy conversion research involves close collaboration with other leading European institutes whose complementary skills are helping to develop new materials with the power to create a step change in energy efficient technologies.