1. Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
  2. School of Chemical and Process Engineering
  3. Research and innovation
  4. Sustainable systems and processes
  5. Sustainable low carbon futures

Sustainable low carbon futures

biogas plant surrounded by fields

In the Sustainable Low Carbon Futures group, we investigate new and exciting aspects of energy generation and use, and seek to demonstrate their sustainability and positive societal impacts. We typically identify challenging sectors, activities, or sensitive regions that are currently responsible for significant pollution due to the intensity and poor quality of their energy use, and, through rounded, multi-sided technological approaches, propose alternative solutions. Among these, we identify those with the greatest reductions in carbon and environmental footprints for future economic, societal, and environmental benefits.  

Some examples include:

  • The pre-treatment and use of agricultural and forestry residues, as well as non-food energy and seed crops as alternative fuels for the generation of heat and power, or as the feedstock for the production of green fuels for cooking and transport (biofuels and bioenergy).
  • The development of conversion, fuel-switching, and energy-storage processes tailored to local resources and needs. These include biorefinery operations, the gas distribution grid, wastewater and sludge treatment, the manufacture of glass and steel, plastics, and value-added products, and the recycling of invasive species into fuels and value-added products.
  • Helping the transition of developing countries like India, Indonesia, and Sub-Saharan Africa toward energy independence and clean growth through Global Challenges Research, for instance, by using hybrid renewable energy approaches. 
  • Planning energy transitions in complex systems like urban areas, refugee settlements, and megacities.
  • Charting renewable energy resources from regional to global scales.
  • Determining the dispersion patterns of airborne pollutants and harmful compounds generated by energy use from indoors to country-wide.
  • Guiding policy in establishing roadmaps to decarbonisation, developing methodologies for the collection and analysis of public responses to planned changes to modes of energy delivery.
  • Developing smart materials and sensors for intelligent energy management. 
  • Designing energy-efficient chemical manufacturing operations from laboratory to industrial scales

Collaborations and partnerships

This group has close ties with the Clean Combustion group, the Industrial Biotechnology and Biowaste Group, the Materials Characterisation Group, the Modelling and Data Analytics Group, the Centre for Integrated Energy Research, and Energy Leeds, with which it shares members and has research activities and projects in common.

The Sustainable Low Carbon Futures group is the home of the MSc and PhD projects funded by the two EPSRC-funded Centres for Doctoral Training (CDT) ‘Technologies for a low carbon future’ (now ended) and ‘Bioenergy’.These links give details of our industrial sponsors.

Recent projects

  • EPSRC- EP/N001745/1 Consortium for Modelling and Analysis of Decentralised Energy Storage (C-MADEnS)
  • Royal Society -DFID Africa Capacity Building Initiative ‘Solar treatment of biomass for power generation’
  • EPSRC - EP/R00076X/1, NWaste2H2- H2 Production by Reforming Bio-methane with Nitrogen Rich Waste Stream
  • EPSRC EP/S017127/1 The role of chemical formatting structures in biomass on the formation of dioxins and furans in soot deposits from the combustion of biomass
  • BBSRC GCRF BEFWAM - BB/S011439/1, Bioenergy and Fertilisers and Clean Water from Invasive Aquatic Macrophytes.
  • EPSRC GCRF CRESM HYRES - EP/R030243/1, ‘Creating Resilient Sustainable Microgrids through Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems’
  • Innovate UK/BBSRC,  UK-India Industrial Biotechnology, ‘Economic non-food sugar from variable mixed solid waste for high value chemical products’
  • Hy4heat Work Package 4 (Developing Hydrogen-fuelled Gas Fires)
  • EP/R024197/1 ‘Co-creating visions and pathways for integrated urban heat systems’
  • Glass Futures Industrial Fuel Switching (BEIS) competition.

Further information

View all members of our research group and publications.

PhD projects

Find out more about our opportunities for prospective postgraduate researchers.

Contact us

If you would like to discuss an area of research in more detail, please contact Dr Valerie Dupont.