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Project Work

In Delivery of Sustainable Hydrogen, the research is divided into a number of main subject groupings:

Expected and Unexpected Synergies

In addition to the above there are cross-cutting issues, where project partners combine their expertise/efforts to address something in particular.

Planned examples of this occur for example between the socio-technical and technical groups where collective knowledge is pooled to complete a specific work task. A specific example of this was the "state of the art" report reviewing "international development targets for selected hydrogen production and delivery technologies". The project allowed the socio-technical partners to access the hard technical knowledge of the other partners to answer (for example) detailed questions about the likely viability of material present in some of the international publications. Scientists sometimes concerned with very focused details of technical aspects of their work in turn benefited from the wider perspective the socio-technical partners bring to the project as they bring in additional factors for consideration which can help to shape technical directions.

 

Arul studying at the University of Newcastle discusses his latest work/findings at a project meeting in Cardiff, May 2010.

Project meetings put all of the project expertise in one room several times each year. This results in synergies that were not initially planned. Open discussion leads to ideas, ideas are then tested jointly. One such idea found hydrogen producing catalysts from the University of Warwick being "built-in" to polymeric hydrogen separation membranes being developed in Cardiff University. Whether or not this will lead to a new type of device is hard to say at this stage, but the probability of the two chemistry groups meeting outwith this project seems remote.