Our Group organised Polymers & Composites for Hydrogen Economy event in March 2025 at the University of Warwick. 

The event brought together speakers from academia and industry to explore fundamental aspects and real-world case studies, and discussed future opportunities and challenges for those materials in their future applications in hydrogen economy.

Industry speakers included Frans Janssen (Strohm), Devon Vehlow (Baker Hughes Ltd), Andrew Douglas (James Walker Ltd), and Vijay Sahadevan (GKN Aerospace).     

The event was organised with the generous sponsorship from EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Modelling Heterogeneous Systems (HetSys). 

The event was also supported by SciMed and the IOM3 Composites Group.

Dr Soheil Bazzazedeh has become Product Development & Testing Engineer at Baker Hughes Ltd. Soheil  has previously worked as KTP Associate in our Group on a succesful  KTP project Innovation in  Multiphysics Modelling for Multilayer Flexible Pipes funded by Innovate UK, in partnership with Baker Hughes Ltd - the project resulted in materials modelling software that will be used in the company to enable more sustainable (less conservative) design of those systems -  see more on it in our press release.  

A partnership with the National Composites Centre (NCC) on hydrogen permeation in composites and multilayer systems funded through the Hydrogen Strategic Programme (HVM Catapult/Innovate UK) has started - Andrew Angus, Research Fellow from our Group has been developing an open-source software Permeatus to enable predictive modelling of hydrogen gas barrier performance of polymer composites.  

Aravinthen Rajkumar has completed his PhD project on Data-driven Modelling of Advanced Polymeric Systems - he developed a computational framework that combined self-consistent field theory (SCFT) simulations with coarse-grained molecular dynamics and Gaussian Process regression to study cyclic non-linear deformations of those materials. Aravinthen was supported through the EPSRC CDT HetSys, and co-supervised by Dr Peter Brommer.  

Henry Royce Institute-funded project on Gaseous Hydrogen Permeation Test Methodology to Enable Improved Composites Storage Solutions for Fuel Cell Vehicles  has been successfully completed within the Materials Challenge Accelerator Programme by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and Universities in Manchester and Warwick. 

Quangminh Bui-Le has started his PhD studentship in Polymer Composites for Hydrogen Economy thanks to the Doctoral Training Programme (DTP) fund, in partnership with Strohm, to establish principles for designing high-pressure composite pipes for hydrogen transmission.