Professor Zhibin Yu PhD

Research Overview

Professor Yu's research is focused on thermal energy technologies and their fundamental thermodynamic, heat transfer, fluid-dynamic problems. He is particularly interested in developing novel technologies for sustainable heating, cooling, and power generation, including but not limited to the topics as follows:

• Heat pumps
• Refrigeration
• Energy storage
• District heating/cooling networks
• Organic Rankine Cycle power plants
• Multi-vector/integrated energy systems
• Energy system digital twin


Research grants:

Current Grants:
• Royal Society: Industrial Fellowship, Flexible Heat Pump Technology – from Concept to Applications, Total Value: £180,255, 01/01/2024 - 31/12/2027. Role: PI.
• EPSRC: Prosperity Partnership, ENSIGN: ENergy System dIGital twiN, Ref: EP/X025322/1, Total Value: £8.8M (EPSRC: £4.3M; Scottish Power Energy Networks: £4.5M), 01/06/2023 - 31/05/2027, Role: UoL PI (leader of the Heat Digital Twin workpackage: £971,414).
• EPSRC: Grid Scale Energy Storage Call, An Adsorption-Compression Cold Thermal Energy Storage System (ACCESS), Ref: EP/W027593/1, Total value: £1,022,621 (UofL: £507k), 09/01/2023-08/01/2025, Role: Overall project PI
• EPSRC: Decarbonisation of Heating and Cooling Call 2, Flexible Air Source Heat pump for domestic heating decarbonisation (FASHION), Ref: EP/V042033/1, Total value: £1,149,352 (UofL: £733k), 01/09/2021-31/08/2024, Role: Overall project PI
• EPSRC: Decarbonisation of Heating and Cooling Call 1, GREEN-ICEs: Generation of REfrigerated ENergy Integrated with Cold Energy storage, Ref: EP/T022701/1, Total value: £1,204,099 (UofG: £400k), 01/09/2020-31/08/2024, Role: PI at UofL
• ESPRC: Programme Grant, Decentralised water technologies. Ref: EP/V030515/1, Total value: £5,994,286, 01/03/2021-28/02/2026, Role: Co-I (Lead of the energy engineering WP with a budget of £606,409)
• EC: Collaborative development of renewable/thermally driven and storage-integrated cooling technologies (Ref: 01007976); Total value: €800K (UofL: €64K), 01/10/2021-31/08/2024, Role: PI at UofG
• Royal Academy of Engineering/Scottish Power, Industrial Fellowship, Value: £84,138. 20/09/2021-19/09/2023. Role: PI
• Energy Technology Partnership/Scottish Power: Mtigate the impacts of heat electrification, PhD studentship, Total Value: £102,000, Oct 2022 – March 2026. Role: PI
• Energy Technology Partnership/SSE: Reducing the performance gap of behind the meter renewale using digital twin technology, PhD studentship, Total Value: £102,000, May 2023 – April 2027. Role: PI
• Energy Technology Partnership/Scottish Power: Modelling of 5th Generation District Heating Networks, PhD studentship, Total Value: £90,000, May 2021 – Jun 2024. Role: PI
• Energy Technology Partnership/Scottish Power: Mitigate the impacts of heat electrification on grid with flexible heating system, PhD studentship, Total Value: £98,000, Oct 2022 – March 2026. Role: PI
• ETP/Transport Scotland Industry Engagement Fund: Novel Heat Pump System for Electric Retrofitted Commercial Vehicles, Total value: £9,366, April 2022 - Dec 2023, Role: PI
• Scottish Power: PhD Studentship, Impact of electrification of heat on the grid. Total value: £68,000, Jan 2019 - Sep. 2023, Role: PI
Completed Grants:
• EPSRC (GCRF): Geothermally sourced combined power and freshwater generation for eastern Africa (Combi-Gen), Ref: EP/P028829/1, Total value: £1,341,748 (UofG: £969,393), May 2017 – July 2021, Role: Overall project PI.
• EPSRC: Thermal Energy Challenge Call, Thermally Driven Heat Pump Based on an Integrated Thermodynamic Cycle for Low Carbon Domestic Heating (Therma-Pump), Ref: EP/N020472/1, Total value: £713,033 (UofG: £505,270), Oct. 2016 – Jun. 2019, Role: Overall project PI.
• EPSRC: First Grant Scheme, Dynamic Organic Rankine Cycle for Recovering Industrial Waste Heat, Ref: EP/N005228/1, Total value: £98,481, Feb. 2016 – Apr. 2017, Role: PI.
• Innovate UK (Newton Fund: China-UK Research and Innovation Bridges competition): An ORC power plant integrated with thermal energy storage to utilise renewable heat sources for distributed heating and power, Ref: EP/R003122/1, Total value: £2M (UofG: £390,871); May 2017 – April 2019; Role: PI
• Innovate UK: Thermo-economic Feasibility of waste heat recovery in Glass Industry, Total Value: £7,500, Jan 2022 - March 2022, Role: UoG PI
• OfGem: Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), Flexible Heat, Total value: £24k, Feb 2022- April 2022. Role: PI at UoG
• OfGem: Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), Heat Balance, Total value: £27k, Feb 2022- April 2022. Role: Co-I
• Energy Technology Partnership/Scottish Power: Modelling and Optimisation of Integrated Urban Energy Systems for both Heating and Power, PhD studentship, Total Value: £90,000, Feb. 2018 – Jan 2022. Role: PI
• Royal Academy of Engineering: Point-of-use heat exchanger system for bio-filtration and storage of portable water. 01/03/2019-28/02/2022. Total Value: £74,826. Role: Co-I
• EPSRC IAA: Waste heat driven cooling system. Total value: £40K, 01/10/2020-31/12/2021, Role: PI.
• UKRI COA Allocation, Total value: £104,463, 01/01/2021-30/09/2021, Role: PI.
• British Council – NSFC, Researcher Links Workshop Grant 2018, China-UK workshop on low-carbon heating and cooling technologies, Ref: 2018-RLWK10-10298, Value: £40K (UofG: £22K), 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2019, Role: PI.
• Royal Society–National Natural Science Foundation of China: Study on the integrated vehicle IC engine-based ORC system, Ref: IE150866, Total value: £12,500 (UofG: £5,350), Mar. 2016 – Mar. 2018, Role: PI.
• EPSRC IAA: Development of a Novel Expander Technology, (Via EP/K503903/1), Total value: £10K, Jan 2017 – Mar. 2017, Role: PI.
• University of Glasgow: Part-time Industrial Secondment to Crown House Technology Ltd, £9,350, Jan. 2015 – Dec. 2015, Role: PI.
• Royal Society: Investigating zeotropic mixtures as working fluids for high efficiency Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plants, Ref: RG130051, Total value: £14,750, Nov. 2013 – Oct. 2014, Role: PI.
• European Commission: Demonstration of soft stimulation treatments of geothermal reservoirs (DESTRESS), Ref: 691728, Total value: €10.7M (UofG: £279,890) 2016 – 2020, Role: Co-I
• Innovate UK (Energy Catalyst 4): Developing and testing a new Energy from Waste Gasification Feedstock. Ref: TS/P006914/19 (Innovate UK: 103493), Total value: £639k (UofG: £125k), Role: Co-I
• EPSRC: Real time control of gasifiers to increase tolerance to biomass variety and reduce emissions, Ref: EP/M01343X/1, Jan. 2015 – Dec. 2017, Total value: £999,756 (UoG: £427,355) Role: Co-I.
• European Commission: Low-Carbon After-Life for Coal Mines (LoCAL) – Ground-Source Heat-Pumps, Total Value: £189,871, Jul. 2014 – Jun. 2017, Role: Co-I.
• Royal Academy of Engineering: Innovative energy neutral membrane system for metallurgy wastewater treatment and heavy metal recovery, Ref: NRCP/1415/55, Total value: £17,850, Jan. 2015 – Nov. 2015, Role: Co-I.
• Chinese Academy of Sciences: Visiting Fellowship, Thermoacoustic energy systems, Total value: CNY 130,000, Sep. 2004 – Sep. 2005, Role: PI.