Clean Energy Technologies

At Monash:

Monash researchers are investigating innovative clean energy technologies to convert non-food biomass into liquid fuels that could ultimately replace petroleum.  Ground-breaking work is also being done to analyse how remote local communities can become energy self-sufficient to reduce energy generation and distribution costs.

Another exciting research area is assessing how clean energy can be produced from Victoria’s vast brown coal reserves.  CO2 emissions could be potentially reduced to near zero through pioneering technologies like carbon capture and geo-sequestration.

Other exciting areas include:

• Brown coal drying technology, combustion and gasification
• Formation and destruction of NOx/SOx and their precursors during the gasification and combustion of coals
• Biomass gasification engineering, biofuels production from algae, biodiesel production from plastics and analysis of the effect of biofuels on internal combustion chemistry and dynamics
• Process efficiency improvement through integration and simulation
• Pre- and post- combustion CO2 capture technology
• Geo-sequestration of CO2 and geo-mechanical behaviour caused by stored supercritical CO2
• Systems approach to use of renewable energy in overall power systems
• Refrigeration systems, air conditioning and solar energy system integration
• Solar photovoltaic modules in stand-alone power systems, hybrid power systems and grid-connected power systems
• Nano-TiO2 based dye sensitised solar cells
• Solid electrolytes including polymer electrolytes, composite electrolytes, gel electrolytes and ionic liquid electrolytes
• Hydrogen storage technology including metal hydrides, nano-porous carbons, nano-grained materials