Heriot-Watt University

Heriot-Watt University (HWU) is a specialist, pioneering university with a global presence delivering innovative research and highly employable graduates. The university has branches not only in the United Kingdom, but also in Dubai and Malaysia. HWU is using its global reach and innovation in teaching, research, and enterprise to make a significant impact towards the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while making commitments to become more sustainable as an institution and global community.    

HWU is involved in ConsenCUS through its Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS). The RCCS is an internationally leading engineering centre, inspiring and delivering innovation for the wider deployment of technologies needed to achieve deep decarbonisation and meet net zero targets and beyond. RCCS has extensive, state-of-the-art, laboratory facilities covering the whole CCUS chain, including equipment for CO2 capture, transport, storage, utilisation, and monitoring. RCCS has over 50 members (staff and PhD students) and is headed by Prof Mercedes Maroto-Valer, who is also the director of the Industrial Decarbonisation Innovation and Research Centre (IDRIC). The team’s research portfolio has a total value of active projects of £20 million, including funding from EPSRC, EU H2020, EU-ERC, the Grantham Foundation and industries.   

“It’s great to be part of the ConsenCUS project” said Mijndert van der Spek, Associate Professor at HWU, “because it represents the next step in CCUS technology and systems development in Europe. Because the CO2 capture and conversion technologies are electricity-based, they prepare CCUS for being able to be powered fully by renewables in future decarbonized societies”. HWU plays a role in four work packages, and their work includes the modelling of the CO2 capture process, the design of the full scale CCU technologies and their integration with the Petrobrazi refinery in Romania, including techno-economic analysis, and contributions to the CCUS network modelling and life cycle analysis. The HWU team currently consists of Mijndert van der Spek, Susana Garcia, Lukas Küng, Friday Ochedi and Lisa Lamborelle, and will soon be expanded with another postdoctoral researcher.