DrMuhammad Imran Khan

Dr. Khan’s research addresses how low-carbon energy technologies can be scaled within real-world environmental, economic, institutional, and policy constraints. His work is organized around three connected themes.

First, he studies clean energy technologies and systems, including green hydrogen, concentrating solar power, solar thermal desalination, renewable power systems, energy storage, and low-carbon industrial energy systems. This work focuses on technology readiness, cost competitiveness, sustainability performance, and deployment barriers. Second, he develops and applies sustainability assessment methods, including life cycle assessment, techno-economic analysis, environmental footprinting, circular economy assessment, and water-energy-climate nexus analysis. These methods are used to evaluate energy technologies not only by cost and technical performance, but also by resource intensity, emissions, resilience, environmental trade-offs, and policy relevance.

Third, he works on energy policy, governance, resilience, and transition planning. This includes energy system resilience under climate and security risks, industrial decarbonization pathways, hydrogen policy, digital sustainability, and evidence-based policy design for emerging and resource-constrained economies. At Imperial College London, his work focuses on policy-relevant research at the interface of energy technology, industrial decarbonization, hydrogen scale-up, climate resilience, and sustainability assessment. He is particularly interested in how life cycle evidence, techno-economic modeling, policy design, and transition governance can be integrated to guide investment decisions, infrastructure planning, and low-carbon industrial transformation.

Research interests

• Clean hydrogen and hydrogen economy
• Solar thermal technologies and concentrating solar power
• Solar thermal desalination and water-energy systems
• Life cycle assessment and environmental footprinting
• Techno-economic analysis and decision-support tools
• Industrial decarbonization and carbon management
• Energy system resilience and climate risk
• Circular economy and sustainable production systems
• Energy policy, governance, and transition planning
• Digital sustainability and Industry 4.0 for sustainability
• Low-carbon infrastructure and sustainable development
• Science-policy interface and research impact assessment