News

Dr Hannah Joyce, Department of Engineering, has been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for her work on: A Cross-Correlated Approach to Engineering Nitride Nanowires.The grants are awarded under the 'excellent science' pillar of Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation programme.Read further by clicking here: http://ow.l…

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, along with Imperial College London, Brunel University and University of Birmingham, has been awarded an EPSRC funded project aimed at minimising primary-energy use in the UK industry. The four year multidisciplinary project, in collaboration with a large number of in…

New experimental research has observed up to 28 orders of parametric resonance, which has until now, only theoretically predicted.The research publication co-authored by CSIC Co-Investigator, Dr Ashwin Seshia, PhD student Sijun Du and former CSIC Research Associate Dr Yu Jia, experimentally confirmed up to 28 orders of parametric resonance in a mic…

Study of natural-occurring 100,000 year-old carbon dioxide (CO2) reservoirs shows no significant corroding of ‘cap rock’, suggesting the greenhouse gas hasn’t leaked back out - one of the main concerns with greenhouse gas reduction proposal of carbon capture and storage.By studying a natural reservoir in Utah, USA, where CO2 released from deeper fo…

Concrete and steel are the primary materials used in constructing buildings, however, University of Cambridge researchers have shown an alternative more energy efficient materials can be used.Dr Michelle Oyen's (Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge) research in the field of biomimetics investigates artificial bone and eggshell. The co…

On 20th May, 2016, Professor Michael Pollitt, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, visited the centre for Energy and Environmental Policy - Beijing Institute of Technology (CEEP-BIT), China. Professor Pollitt presented on the topic “In Search of ’Good’ Energy Policy: why multi-disciplinary approaches to energy and climate problems are so…

The Department of Engineering’s Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) is building on advances in sensing technology to learn everything possible about a city’s infrastructure. This includes tunnels, roads, bridges, sewers and power supplies, in order to maintain a city and optimise its use for the future. CSIC, an Innovation and K…

On 9 June the Cambridge University Energy Network (CUEN) hosted its annual Energy Conference 2016: Renewable Energy – The Holy Grail of Future Energy?Energy@Cambridge was pleased to be a sponsor of the event. Invited speakers covered the challenges lying ahead of the energy industry transitioning from fossil fuels to a CO2-free generation.Speakers:…

In the search for low emission plant-based fuels, new research may help avoid having to choose between growing crops for food or fuel.Scientists have identified new steps in the way plants produce cellulose, the component of plant cell walls that provides strength, and forms insoluble fibre in the human diet. The findings could lead to improved pro…

On 21 March The Alan Turing Institute (ATI) Energy Summit took place in Murray Edwards College and was organised by the Energy@Cambridge Strategic Research Initiative in partnership with The Alan Turing Institute and sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council(EPSRC).The objective of the Summit was to highlight the requireme…

Sir James Dyson opened some of the world’s most advanced engineering facilities at the University of Cambridge on the 9 May 2016, giving the institution’s students and academics the space and means to prototype, invent and collaborate on cutting-edge research. The development has been funded by a £8m donation from the James Dyson Foundation, the la…

Chris Abell has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.Chris is the Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. A major focus of his highly interdisciplinary research has been to understand the mechanisms of key enzymes, and develop approaches to their inhibition. He was a pioneer in the development of fragment-based ap…

Professor Sir David Mackay passed away on 14 April 2016. Professor Mackay joined the University of Cambridge as a Natural Sciences (Physics) undergraduate in 1985 and then went on to complete his PhD at the California Institute of Technology in Computational Mathematics. In 1992, he returned to Cambridge as the Royal Society Smithson Research Fello…

A centrepiece for industrial partnership with the physical sciences and engineering, and home to Energy@Cambridge officially opened on the 7 April 2016. The building was opened by David Harding, whose generous sponsorship of the Physics of Sustainability programme was central to the funding of the Maxwell Centre project by HEFCE. In addition, the c…

Scientists have discovered that a highly promising group of materials known as hybrid lead halide perovskites can recycle light – a finding that they believe could lead to large gains in the efficiency of solar cells. Hybrid lead halide perovskites are a particular group of synthetic materials which have been the subject of intensive scientific res…