Biography: Dr. Bin Zhu, Professor has been studying ceramic fuel cell, materials, technology and science including superionic conductor and electrocatalysis, semiconductor-ionic materials and single layer fuel cell, electro-catalyst reaction, charge separation and transfer and surficial and interfacial ionic transport mechanisms for more than 30 years. Most of his research focuses on ceria-based composite superionic conductor for low temperature solid oxide fuel cell (LTSOFC), semiconductor-ionic electrolyte-free fuel cell and single layer to semiconductor-membrane fuel cells and joint fuel cell and solar fuel principle and technology. He has explored and set up semiconductor-ionic and semiconductor application for electrochemistry, i.e. semiconductor electrochemistry for fuel cell research and development, especially, semiconductor membrane fuel cells, where electron-ion coupling enhanced ionic conductivity, multi-charge transfer and super proton transport processes, surficial and interfacial superionic conduction design and methodology with an emphasis on nano-scale materials, nano-redox reaction process and nano-redox devices for new generation energy conversion technology and application. He has published about 400 SCI papers that have been cited over 10000 times (H index = 53). He has been the recipient of 2018 WSSET (World Society of Sustainable Energy Technologies) Innovation award for Power Generation. Sustainable energy award. He is one of the Most Cited scholars in China (Energy sector, Elsevier) every year since 2014-.

Topic: Semiconductor Membrane Fuel Cells

Abstract: Conventional ionic conductivity has been developed by ionic conducting materials for the electrolyte. Typically, solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), yttrium stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte, which needs high operational temperature above 700 °C to reach required ionic conductivity. High temperature requirements cause a delay of the SOFC commercialization. Metal oxide Semiconductor (MOS)-based materials possess basically intrinsic electronic conduction and mixed by extrinsic ionic conduction, they have been explored and developed as new functional material family with superionic conduction to replace the conventional electrolytes for new generation fuel cell technology and application. The band structure, p-n junction and build-in-field have been discovered to facilitate fast ionic transport. Tuning semiconductors and heterostructures to ionic conductors is a very effective approach to develop effective electro-catalysts and superionic conductivities for next generation fuel cells and novel energy devices. For example, fuel cells built on anode, electrolyte and cathode three components can now be constructed by semiconductor-ionic one component to realize more efficiently the fuel cell hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) through band structure and alignment without using the electrolyte separator. Numerous amounts of semiconductor-ionic materials have been explored and novel MOS fuel cell technologies have been demonstrated. Some examples are bulk hetero p-n junction and Schottky junction for single layer fuel cells, designed by energy bands and alignments. New disciplines of Semiconductor-Ionics and Semiconductor Electrochemistry have been establishing not only for energy conversion, e.g. fuel cells, but also for energy storage devices like batteries.

Biography: Dr. Xiao Wu received his B. S. degree and Ph. D. degree in Energy information and Automation in Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in 2008 and 2014. He joined Southeast University in 2014 as assistant professor in School of Energy and Environment, was promoted to associate professor in 2019. Since 2019, he has been a visiting professor in Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the University of Sheffield, UK. Prof. Wu has been investigators in over 20 research grants with funding from European Union, Royal Society, NSFC, MOST and Industry. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers including Applied Energy, Energy, Fuel, IEEE Trans. Energy Conversion. He has been awarded Jiangsu Outstanding Youth Foundation, Excellent young scholar of Jiangsu Engineering Thermophysics Society, Royal Society-Sino-British Trust International Fellow, Young Science and Technology Talents of Jiangsu Province in the last three years. His main research area is in Process Systems Engineering for Energy and Environment, including Process Modelling, Simulation, Control and Optimization, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Power Plants，Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) and Integrated Energy System (IES).

Topic: Advanced Control of Solvent-based Carbon Capture System for Wide Range Flexible Operation

Abstract: Solvent-based carbon dioxide capture technology is currently the most promising technology for coal-fired power plant flue gas carbon capture. Because coal-fired power plants are widely involved in peak regulation and the chemical solvent regeneration requires to consume huge amount of heat, it is of great significance to conduct overall scheduling and control research on the integrated coal-fired power plant-carbon capture process to achieve flexible operation of the system. This study develops a high-precision simulation platform for Supercritical coal-fired power plant-carbon capture system. An overall optimal scheduling method for power plant carbon capture system in the context of renewable energy penetration is proposed, and the role of power plant-carbon capture system in future low carbon energy mix is studied. A novel control scheme for the power plant-carbon capture is proposed based on the model predictive control (MPC) to track the scheduling results, in which the re-boiler steam flowrate is incorporated in the boiler-turbine coordinated control system to assist the regulation of power output and the lean solvent flow is used to control CO2 capture rate in the carbon capture system. By making full use of the interactions and time scale difference between the supercritical coal-fired power plant and the solvent-based post-combustion carbon capture system, the proposed approach can effectively improve the load response speed of the power plant, making it have a stronger peak-shaving capacity of the power grid with limited impact on the operation of the carbon capture system.

Biography: Dr. Nian She is the Director of Institute of Smart Sponge City Construction and Planning and a professor of Innovation Center in Zhuhai of Tsinghua University. Dr. She has more than 30 years of experience in river/lake restoration, sediment remediation, water quality, climate/hydrologic/hydraulic modeling, stormwater management and water resources planning and management. He was a senior civil engineering specialist with City of Seattle before joining Tsinghua University Innovation Center in Zhuhai. He is also a distinguish professor in Guangzhou University and a guest professor in Shenzhen University of China. Dr. She has been working in Climate change associated with urban disaster prevention and planning, taking account of climate change into LID/GSI design and stormwater management since early 1990s. He has been working on hundreds of LID/GSI projects worldwide.

Topic: Developing a Powerful Assessment Tool to Quantify Climate Change Impacts and Future Risk in High Spatial Resolution for the Southeastern of China

Abstract: The impacts of climate change on the south-eastern of China have been witnessed in recent years, but the previous studies are too coarse in spatial resolution resulting. These studies cannot be used for local infrastructure and natural disaster prevention planning and engineering design. Further, the lack of appropriate assessment tools to quantify the future risk is a major obstacle for city planners and engineers. To overcome these difficulties and challenges we developed a powerful assessment tool based on high-resolution climate and hydrology models to quantify the future risk caused by the climate impacts. The tool can quantify rainfall characteristics, extreme weather events, flood risk from 4-12 square kilometers up to 2060 on a spatial-temporal scale. The tool was used in Zhuhai natural disaster prevention master plan as an excellent application example.