West Midlands university gets £1m to help Ukraine rebuild - here's how
Researchers at Aston University are to receive just over £1 million to develop technology to help Ukraine rebuild its low-carbon energy generation capacity and boost its energy resilience.
The money has been granted by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office as part of the Innovate Ukraine project.
Engineers and scientists from the university’s Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute (EBRI) and Engineering for Sustainable Development Centre have received the money to fund three projects.
The schemes range from clean energy to restoring heating and sanitation to displaced and off-grid communities to refrigerant-free cooling for conflict regions.
All three are collaborations with either UK or Ukraine companies or other organisations.
After lab testing in the UK a unit of the BioSolar Nexus will be deployed in Ukraine to produce electricity, heat, cooking fuel, and fertiliser from organic waste.
Led by the University’s Dr Muhammad Imran with Dr Abed Alaswad, the system is a UK-Ukraine collaboration in sustainable infrastructure which can operate in extreme winter.
A clean energy storage system called AeroVault will bolster Ukraine’s power grid. It uses compressed air and phase-change materials to store electricity and heat, then releases both through a rotary-piston expander to generate power efficiently.
A lab prototype will be built at Aston University, followed by a 500 kW pilot in the Ukrainian village of Nyzhni Vorota.
And a project called Eco Venturi which is led for Aston by Dr Ahmed Rezk will introduce refrigerant-free cooling for energy-insecure and conflict-affected regions.
It operates by separating compressed air into hot and cold streams - delivering efficient cooling while recovering waste heat as electricity via microturbines.
The system is also renewable-driven friendly. The closed-loop reduces cooling energy demand by more than 50 per cent and cuts carbon emissions by up to 75 per cent compared to traditional systems.
The project is one of the outcomes from the Reef-UKC network led by Dr Rezk that promote the UK companies’ innovation in cooling resilience through renewable-powered and eco-friendly cooling systems.
Dr Muhammad Imran who is leading two of the projects for the university said: “Together, these UK–Ukraine partnerships are delivering novel, scalable energy solutions with real on-the-ground demonstrations in Ukraine, ensuring practical impact for community resilience and sustainable energy recovery."
The new projects follow 2023 research led by Dr Imran that received more than a quarter of a million pounds to develop cascade heat pumps to provide efficient heating, cost savings, environmental protection and energy security.
The other organisations involved are Unitech Ltd, Keyvolt Energy Llc (Ukraine), Future Cycle Ltd (UK), Climhouse Energy Llc (Ukraine), National Council for Sustainable Development (Ukraine) Enskild Tech (Ukraine), International centre for the development of SMART society (Ukraine) and Association of Independent Environmental Protection (Ukraine).
