Great British Chemicals

Started

Energy Efficiency(Industry)
Fossil Fuels: Oil Gas and Coal(CO2 Capture and Storage, CO2 capture/separation)
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)

Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Policy and regulation)
Other (Energy technology information dissemination)

Peter Styring
University of Sheffield

Standard

EPSRC

01 August 2025

01 August 2032

84 months

£19,794,441

Unknown

Yorkshire & Humberside

Energy and Decarbonisation

Peter Styring, University of Sheffield

Richard Catlow, Cardiff University
Alex Cowan, University of Liverpool
Russell Davenport, Newcastle University
Trevor Farren, University of Nottingham
Michael George, University of Nottingham
Elizabeth Gibson, Newcastle University
Christopher Hardacre, University of Manchester
Oliver Heidrich, Newcastle University
Colin Hills, University of Greenwich
Thomas Howard, Newcastle University
Alex Hughes, Newcastle University
John Irvine, University of St Andrews
Arze Karam, Durham University
David Lewis, University of Manchester
Peter Licence, University of Nottingham
James McGregor, University of Sheffield
Jon Mckechnie, University of Nottingham
Fanran Meng, University of Sheffield
Martyn Poliakoff, University of Nottingham
James Rae, University of St Andrews
Alberto Roldan-Martinez, Cardiff University
Matthew Rosseinsky, University of Liverpool
Rachel Smith, University of Sheffield
Nimisha Tripathi, University of Greenwich
Maria Val Martin, University of Sheffield
Sergio Vernucci, University of Southampton
Paul Webb, University of St Andrews
Mohammad Zandi, University of Sheffield

Great British Chemicals (GBC) is a national hub uniting industry, researchers, and policymakers to revolutionise UK chemicals production by advancing innovative, scalable technologies that transform waste and renewable resources into sustainable solutions, tackling the grand challenge to reduce fossil fuel dependency while securing resilient, environmentally sound, and economically vibrant supply and value chains. GBC will demonstrate how industry can exploit the net zero transition as one of the most profitable areas for the UK, ensuring a strong economy and an improved environment that is fair and creates inclusive opportunities. The chemistry-using industries are a vast and complex sector, comprising several diverse sub-sectors, each playing a crucial role in various aspects of modern life. GBC has identified opportunities, leveraging the outcomes of major UKRI investments such as CircularChem, Flue2Chem, the Catalysis Hub, doctoral training grants and aligned research and partnerships. It will create, collate, and translate knowledge from research on defossilising (rather than decarbonising) chemicals across technologies, policy, energy, and industrial systems in partnership with industry, civic bodies, national government, and the third sector. The challenge areas have been described in recent reports: Innovate UK Sustainable Carbon Ambition, Royal Society “Defossilising the Chemical Industry”, IChemE Climate Change Action Plans, DESNZ Unlocking Resource Efficiency, Phase 2 Chemicals Report. The triple drivers leading to a focus on defossilising chemicals are: the major contribution of the chemicals sector to the UK’s industrial carbon emissions (19%); the dependence of all industries and citizens’ health on chemicals (96% manufactured goods); the critical importance of the chemicals sector to the UK economy (£61bn/a exports). Reducing the UK’s carbon emissions by 78% between 1990 and 2035 (6th Carbon Budget) cannot be achieved without addressing the carbon embedded in the feedstocks and processes in chemical using industries. GBC’s whole system approach includes mapping hotspots for replacement with zero fossil alternatives with the least disruption to the existing infrastructure, accelerating adoption of smarter technologies and chemistries, and evaluating economic and environmental impacts. GBC will target the foundation chemicals within the existing petrochemical industries and will support the community to create a new, circular chemicals supply chain. GBC’s end-to-end approach will minimise the demand for energy and competition for limited resources, such as biomass. Adopting waste hierarchy principles could optimise less energy-intensive manufacturing, including the production of vehicles, wood/paper products, consumer hygiene products, pharmaceuticals and electronics, among other industries. These sectors provide opportunities for industrial symbiosis by providing by-products as feedstocks for other industries and can provide new revenue streams for businesses. The research will be delivered via a Moonshot project on the digital acceleration of technology for Chemical transformations, three work streams: Carbon Capture, CO2 Use, and Process Intensification, all underpinned by three cross-cutting Function Streams: Planet, Prosperity, and People. Further, innovative ideas for co-creation and co-delivery with wider stakeholders will be provided via Flexible Funding structured as follows: Phase 1 (early stage) - identify high-potential research innovations and assess their industry applicability through feasibility studies, market analysis, and project prioritisation based on scalability and readiness.  Phase 2 (mid stage) – advance prioritised projects to validate tools/services by supporting development, industry collaborations for real-world testing, and technical and commercial validation.  Phase 3 (late stage) – enable full-scale deployment by finalising development to industry standards, supporting adoption through pilot programmes, and establishing commercialisation pathways for long-term industry uptake. 

07/01/26