ProfessorPaul Fennell

Research Overview

Professor Fennell's research centres on the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industry — the sectors, like cement, steel and chemicals, where cutting carbon emissions can't simply be solved by switching to renewable electricity.

Clean hydrogen and hybrid industrial processes. Development of hybrid processes that produce hydrogen alongside valuable foundation materials — steel, cement, and chemicals — rather than treating hydrogen production and industrial manufacturing as separate problems. This includes sorption-enhanced reforming, chemical looping, and other high-temperature routes that combine gas production with in-situ CO2 capture.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Novel CCS technologies, with a particular focus on calcium and chemical looping cycles, and the re-engineering of existing industrial processes to reduce their energy and CO2 output through integration with capture and storage — enabling a genuine pathway to net zero rather than incremental efficiency gains.

Beyond Net Zero. Integration of biomass into industrial processes so that CO2 is actively removed from the atmosphere rather than merely avoided, including the use of spent capture sorbents in cement manufacture and long-term CO2 uptake in cement and concrete.

Low-carbon cement and steel. Advanced, low-carbon production routes for iron, steel and cement, including direct demonstration that cement made using spent calcium-looping sorbent meets normal quality standards — work with direct relevance to industrial adoption rather than laboratory-scale proof of concept.

Trace element mitigation. Reducing trace element emissions from combustion and industrial processes, including ash-forming and trace element behaviour in biomass combustion, to protect both human health and process equipment.

Critical material recovery. Circular-economy recovery of critical and rare-earth materials — from mobile phones, sewage sludge, WEEE and wind turbine magnets — using ionic liquids, in collaboration with Professor Jason Hallett; this work underpins the spin-out company Ionic Recovery.

Cross-industry and systems integration. Integration of energy production into industrial processes, and cross-sector integration of industrial hubs to exploit shared infrastructure, waste streams and energy flows across otherwise disconnected industries.

Policy and industrial deployment. Long-standing technical and policy leadership on UK and EU carbon capture readiness regulation, and consultancy for government and industry translating research into deployable, investable technology.