Dr Roberto Volpe
PhD
Research Overview
Biomass and Bioenergy, Sustainable Materials, Alternative and Renewable Fuel, Catalysis, Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, Biomaterials, Functional Materials
Interests
Providing pathways for low emissions renewable based technologies to ensure secure and sustainable energy supplies has been a goal during many years of research and currently one of UK national importance for ‘Achieving energy security and efficiency’ and 'Transform to a sustainable society, with a focus on the circular economy'. I concentrate my research work on biomass conversion for energy purposes in pyrolysis and gasification set-ups.
Much of the technological challenges facing biomass pyrolysis and gasification, relate to current lack of fundamental knowledge of biomass thermochemical breakdown. I design experiments to fill these knowledge gaps, break through existing barriers and allow scaling-up of a robust and versatile small-scale gasification technology.
My current research interests are:
1. Gasification of solid fuels in moving bed set-ups
2. The evolution of solid biofuels during thermal breakdown
3. Synthesis of renewable carbon materials through biomass thermal conversion
4. The use of biomass char in catalytic tar cracking