Cleantech Investor

Elisabeth Jeffries reviews technology innovation emerging from Imperial College London

Where the Russians lead, the Americans follow; where the Americans lead, the Russians follow. The new cold war for the 21st century has barely begun in the vicious climate of the Arctic circle. It is a scramble to extract the greatest share of hydrocarbons located under the seabed in the second most hostile place on the planet. This underground fuel accounts for 13% (90 billion barrels of oil and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids) of undiscovered oil on the planet, according to US Geological survey estimates in 2008.

Professor Alistair Fraser, geologist at Imperial College, London University, believes the Russians are creating a menace from dangerous and dirty technology used to get at more of the stuff more quickly. The Russians, he indicates, “want to use a nuclear drilling machine to operate under the ice. We don’t want them to develop that or let them loose with inadequate technologies. At least Western companies are in there bringing the right technologies to bear.” These companies, he suggests, include Shell and Exxon Mobil.

Partly as a response to this perceived hazard, Imperial College, a third of whose research funding comes from the private sector, aims to develop a store of new technologies that will enable Arctic oil hunters to operate more effectively, efficiently and perhaps more cleanly in sub-zero temperatures. Among some of the ideas being explored by the college’s new Arctic research centre, due to start up in 2012, is the application of medical robots to geology. According to Fraser, robots used in healthcare have been developed to work effectively in cold conditions. If the transfer works, it could mean fewer and more mobile Arctic installations as well as more remotely controlled activity. “It would be a game changing technology,” he says.

If the hydrocarbons could be captured and converted to a less polluting fuel or fuel carrier before even seeing the light of day, they would attract less opposition. Fraser and colleagues at the Energy Futures Lab (set up by the college in 2005) have also dedicated 18 months of initial study to an emerging technique known as down hole processing. They aim to develop a reactor model for the gasification of hydrocarbons in order to produce hydrogen and synthesis gas combined with upgraded hydrocarbons for different energy and petrochemical applications. Growing fuel cell markets, they argue, will drive a greater demand for synthesis gas and hydrogen, which are produced at the moment by steam reforming and partial oxidation of hydrocarbons.

“At the moment we take oil and gas deep in the subsurface and don’t make use of the heavy energy associated with extracting it at high temperatures. Instead we lift it to the surface and put more energy into converting it to fuel, increasing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted at the surface. Our long term aim is to separate the gases in situ, keep the CO2 underground and take the hydrogen and methane to the surface,” explains Professor Geoff Maitland, the energy engineer heading the Imperial College project. Clearly, if this technology could be developed and used in the Arctic, it could make industrial activity in the region more acceptable. Professor Fraser suggests: “The people with the cleanest and most environmentally sensitive technologies will be the ones who get the licences.”

If down hole processing evolves, Maitland envisages fairly modest facilities on the surface. “In environmentally sensitive areas the surface footprint would be quite small. An analogy with underground coal gasification in mining is quite a good one,” he says. Nevertheless, no commercial backing has been found for the project as yet. Maitland, who is also in charge of investigations on carbon capture and storage (CCS), admits it is early days and the first plant could be decades away.

Imperial College’s new Qatar Carbonates and Carbon Storage Research Centre (QCCSRC), which Maitland also directs, could yield carbon storage solutions needed in the Middle East, where storage conditions are different from those under the North Sea or in North America. The carbonate reservoirs in the region are fractured and more complex with different pore sizes, and the storage of CO2 can cause reactions within the reservoirs. Maitland foresees new investment opportunities in the region in the coming years. “There’s scope for innovation by small companies in injection and monitoring technologies – which check where the CO2 is going and migrates,” he points out.

While hydrogen production may eventually be the outcome of the down hole boring process under investigation at Imperial College, the commercialisation of fuel cells in terms of new companies is these days less of a focus at the university college. Professor Nigel Brandon, a co-founder of Ceres Power and director of the Energy Futures Lab, does not envisage many new fuel cell spinouts, despite the relative success of Ceres and despite the fact that global fuel cell patents have been growing in number more than most other renewable energy patents.

“Ten years down the line, the fuel cell landscape is more crowded. It’s very hard and takes a lot of money to take an idea and trial it; you need a very clear landscape with very limited competition for that to be worth doing,” he observes. Instead, Brandon predicts greater commercial activity in the battery space. “Batteries are getting the same excitement today as fuel cells ten years ago. There’s a greater appetite for innovation because it hadn’t received as much attention so there’s a lot more opportunities.”

Among the college’s new patents in the automotive field that could generate further commercial opportunities or licensing arrangements is a device that measures how much charge is left in an electric battery. “If you think of the state of charge indicators on mobile phones, after a while they become less accurate...once it’s been done 1,000 times you get accumulative errors,” says Brandon. This, he argues, could be a useful tool for EV drivers. The new device gets around this problem. Brandon predicts more ideas surrounding EVs and hybrids.  

But perhaps the college’s Artificial Leaf project, an idea based on the understanding of photosynthesis, will yield the most radical ideas. Around 600 scientists (some from other universities) are working on the scheme, which kicked off in 2009. It aims to recycle waste CO2, using sunlight and water to turn it into hydrogen and new carbon-based fuels. “The only thing people can think of to address the CO2 issue is to capture and store it underground.  But can we do something more exciting – like turning it into something else? Five years ago you wouldn’t have found people talking about it, but it’s now an exciting area of science,” states Professor Brandon.

New spinouts

One of the first innovations to come out of the research is a process that could turn CO2 into specific polymers and chemicals. “There’s a small demand for it, but it’s interesting and useful. This is quite advanced and close to commercialisation,” says Brandon. The start-up company, Econic, has received seed funding from Imperial Innovations plc, the college’s commercial venture company. It is developing a catalyst and process for manufacturing plastics using waste CO2 streams. David Morgan, previously executive director responsible for strategy and mergers and acquisitions at speciality chemicals company Johnson Matthey, has been appointed chairman.

The process involves copolymerising CO2 with another chemical to form plastics such as polypropylene carbonate. “We believe we have a better catalyst. Others that have tried this require the use of a relatively hostile chemical under high pressure and in high temperatures,” says Jon Page, technology ventures director at Imperial Innovations. This, he indicates, could make the process much more commercially viable. Tests have produced a greater range of potential plastics that could be generated using the process. “However, we’re not clear about some of the properties of the plastics ... lots of people said it was shockingly early stage and unproven, but we set the scientists the challenge and it’s looking quite promising.”  

Plastics are also the output of another spinout, Plaxica, which aims to produce PLA (polylactic acid) based biopolymers.  According to Page, these second generation biopolymers could replace PET – used in many applications including soft drink bottles and clothing – in a wide range of applications and are a fast growing market.  

“Demand from companies like Toyota, which uses it in auto interiors, and Coca-Cola, which uses it in packaging, are inspiring us to go ahead with this, but it will be 18 months before we look for funding again,” he comments, alluding to a £5 million cash injection received in September 2011 contributing to work at a pilot plant in Wilton, North East England. Plaxica’s aim has been to make PLA at a lower cost than rivals or earlier processes. Page envisages a £50-100 million plant will be needed when the company finally produces at full volumes. “We’ll need a partnering strategy. Partnering will be quite important,” he says.

Other, less developed research could cut the costs of flow batteries, generating a spinout company or some other form of commercialisation.  “We’ve filed one patent in this area and are preparing others ... in my view the principal challenge to be addressed is cost reduction, though the experience of previous flow battery companies shows that the engineering challenges – such as integrity and degradation of seals, membranes, electrodes, etc. – should not be underestimated, either,” comments Dr Chris Hales, technology ventures executive at Imperial Innovations.

Flow batteries can be used for energy load balancing and can store energy produced by intermittent renewable energy sources like wind power. “You need to capture wind power at a relatively low cost.  We had hypotheses as to novel chemistry that might make them cheaper.  We’re still testing the concept,” says Hales.

Using aluminium to reduce the weight of vehicles is the foundation for another spinout that may be on the way.  Imperial College experts have devised a new process known as tool quench forming (TQF) which they say allows automotive manufacturers to replace some steel in cars with aluminium. This is because, unlike previous aluminium manufacturing processes, TQF can produce complex components in high volumes. As aluminium is stronger than steel, this means less material is needed for vehicle parts.  

“It could make lighter cars which use less petrol. Prior to chasing prospective investors we’ve done a lot of work engaging with industry and talking to auto manufacturers to evaluate the projects and design the technology into new models of car,” says Hales, who envisages it being commercialised and used in vehicles within three years.  

If recent successes are anything to go by, these potential spinouts could have a bright future. The Imperial Innovations team is excited about the future of Evo Electric and Nexeon, the lithium-ion battery company for which it closed a £40 million funding round in the summer of 2011. “It’s a disruptive technology with a fantastic management team,” says Jon Page. Of Evo Electric, with which components company GKN agreed a joint venture and partial ownership in 2011, he comments: “For Evo and GKN the obvious scenario is a full stake, but it could go ahead and have an independent future.”