UKCCSRC Knowledge Exchange Conference 2025 (Sheffield, 10-11 September 2025)

Our Knowledge Exchange Conference 2025 took place on 10-11th September, at INOX, University of Sheffield, with a conference dinner celebrating 20 Years of the UKCCSRC on Wednesday 10th, at the Sheffield Town Hall.

Over the two days, we had overview plenaries and keynotes, plus a range of different CCS stakeholders presenting in parallel sessions on current and future CCS work and research. There were also be plenty of opportunities for networking, and a few fun celebratory bits thrown in too!

The agenda is below. Please note that this conference is in-person only.  Bookings closed 5pm, Wednesday 27th August.  The call for abstracts for presentations/posters closed on Monday 2nd June.  The ECR Meeting Fund was opened to support ECR attendance at this conference.

Jump to:

• • Speaker & chair biographies
  • Presentations
  • Poster gallery

Agenda

Day 1 – Wednesday 10th September 2025

Abdulsalam Abdulkarim, Robert Gordon University

Abdulsalam is a PhD candidate at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, specialising in CO₂ sequestration and caprock integrity in depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs. With over seven years of professional experience in subsea and petroleum engineering, he now focuses his research on geomechanical stability and leakage prevention in CO₂ storage. Prior to his doctoral studies, Abdulsalam graduated from Cranfield University with an MSc in Subsea Engineering and worked as a Subsea Engineer at the Federal Institute of Oil and Gas, Nigeria. Currently, he is an active member of the UK CCS Research Community and the International Association for Carbon Capture, contributing to the advancement of safe and sustainable CO₂ storage solutions.

Parvin Ahmadi, Teesside University

Parvin is a Reservoir Engineer with 18 years of experience in the oil and gas industry.  She has been a PhD candidate in Teesside University UK since March 2021.  Her research focus is on CO₂ sequestration, by using CO₂ in hybrid thermal water desalination plant and gas hydrate later the remaining sewage to be injected into geological reservoir.

Shadab Alam, Teesside University

Shadab is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre, Teesside University (UK), which he joined in September 2024. He leads work on the “Northern Ireland/Great Britain Marine Decarbonisation” project, advancing clean maritime transition through methanol-based e-fuels, onboard CO₂ capture, and green H2 production.

With nearly a decade of research experience at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Shadab has focused on Clean, Sustainable, and Efficient Energy Technologies to combat global warming. His primary expertise lies in Blue/Green Hydrogen Production and Carbon Capture & Utilisation (CCU).  His commitment to research excellence and innovation is illustrated by his proactive leadership in process design, modelling, and implementation of decarbonisation technologies, as well as his ongoing efforts to enable a cleaner, more sustainable future for the energy, industrial and transport sectors.

Brian Allison, Open University (formerly DECC/BEIS)

Brian spent 11 years working on CCUS policy in DECC/BEIS during a civil service career spanning 42 years. Whilst working on CCUS, Brian was the UK’s Co-lead of the CCUS Clean Energy Ministerial Initiative, Co-lead of the Mission Innovation CCUS Challenge, ExCo Member of CSLF, ExCo Member of IEAGHG, General Assembly Member of ECCSEL and the National Contact Point for the Accelerating CCUS Technologies (ACT) grant programme. Brian also led on the development of several pieces of legislation; one being the Storage of Carbon Dioxide (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations and its associated Guidance on Disputes over Third Party Access to CO2 Transport and Storage Infrastructure.

Retiring from the civil service in 2021, he has continued his academic career with The Open University where he is a lecturer specialising in energy, ICT and engineering for BSc and BEng undergraduate students. Brian is eager to see great things happening in the CCUS world and, now viewing from the “outside”, he believes that this all looks to be going in the right direction!

Carys Blunt, IEAGHG (formerly UKCCSRC)

Carys Blunt is the Events and Programme Manager at the IEAGHG, leading their international Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference (GHGT) and Post Combustion Capture Conference (PCCC), as well as supporting the organisation of their workshops, summer schools and ExCo meetings. She joined the IEAGHG in July 2025. Prior to this, Carys was the Centre Manager at the UKCCSRC, starting in 2016, and led their Conferences and Events Programme, Early Career Researcher Programme, Flexible Funding and the general management of the Centre.

Jeremy Carey, Exergetic

Jeremy is currently MD of Exergetic Limited, helping large corporates, SMEs and public sector clients with aspects of R&D and development funding. He has worked on a wide range of energy transition projects including CCS, hydrogen, heat pumps, zero emission trucks and industrial process decarbonisation.

His previous experience includes six years leading 42 Technology, a company of ~40 engineers and scientists providing commercial R&D services, and six years at SSE, leading large generation projects in biomass, SCR, waste-to-energy and CCS. Jeremy was closely involved with the 100te/day capture plant at Ferrybridge and was the capture lead for the 2010-2013 incarnation of the 1Mte/yr Peterhead CCS project. Jeremy was Chair of the UKCCSRC Board from 2015 until handing over to Bryony Livesey in 2025.

Peipei Chen, University of Cambridge

Peipei is a Research Associate at the Energy Policy Research Group (EPRG), Judge Business School,  University of Cambridge. She holds a PhD from the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London (UCL), and was a visiting researcher at the Energy, Climate, and Environment Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). Her research focuses on low-carbon technology deployment, industrial decarbonisation pathways, and social impact assessment in the context of climate change policy and energy system transitions.

Pierre Dieudonné, University of Edinburgh

Pierre is a second year PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in polymeric membranes for Carbon Capture and Storage. His journey in CCS started during his master’s thesis with Prof. Maria-Chiara Ferrari, where he conducted experimental work on the performance of membranes at sub-ambient temperature. He decided to stay in Edinburgh for his PhD in the same research group, now integrating both experimental and simulation approaches to assess the potential of novel materials in large-scale industrial application. Pierre aims to bridge the gap between fundamental academic research and industrial goals in membrane science and CCS.

Jon Gibbins, UKCCSRC and University of Sheffield

Jon is Professor of CCS at the University of Sheffield and director of the UK CCS Research Community Network+.  He has worked on energy engineering, fuel conversion and CCS for 45 years, initially in industry and then as a university academic.  Since 2002 Jon has been heavily involved in CCS activities, working on post-combustion capture and its effective integration and, through the UKCCSRC, helping to start now-mainstream UK initiatives on industrial decarbonisation (2012) and CCS clusters (2016). His personal research activities now centre around practical aspects of CCS deployment, with an emphasis on policy and economic requirements plus detailed analysis of matching capture plant designs to market conditions, supported in particular by the facilities at the Translational Energy Research Centre in Sheffield.  He is active in reviewing Best Available Technology (BAT) status for CO2 capture technologies and is also a Vice Chair of the UNECE Group of Experts on Cleaner Electricity Systems, specialising in CCS.

Chitrakshi Goel, Promethean Particles Ltd

Chitrakshi (Chitra) is the Senior Application Engineer at Promethean Particles (“Promethean”), an independent venture-capital backed spin-out from the University of Nottingham. Promethean is a UK-based, global pioneer, leading the industrial-scale manufacture of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) – a class of advanced materials. Chitra has a diverse background across international research environments, spanning both academia and industry. Her work bridges cutting-edge material science with real-world industrial applications. In her current role, she collaborates closely with the R&D and Commercial teams to identify, test and demonstrate the potential of MOFs across a wide range of applications.

Simon Gregory, British Geological Survey

Simon leads the microbiology research at the British Geological Survey. His team works on understanding the interactions between microorganisms living beneath the Earth’s surface and their environment. This includes understanding how our use of the subsurface for waste disposal, heat extraction and energy storage affects the microbial communities that are there and how that could affect industrial operations through microbiologically influenced corrosion, bioclogging and the microbial production and consumption of gases. His laboratory also works on methane cycling in soils, groundwater and wetlands, biomining and the stabilisation of slopes and coastal environments though microbial precipitation of minerals.

Joseph Hammond, University of Sheffield

Joseph is a Co-Founder and the technical lead at AENi, a pre-launch software platform for intelligent foresight and strategic design of spatial energy networks. AENi is being developed to support long-term decision-making in the energy transition by simulating complex infrastructure futures and stakeholder behaviours. Alongside this, he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Sheffield, where his research focuses on the dynamic development of spatial energy infrastructures and the influence of stakeholder actions over time. He specialises in computational modelling, with deep experience in Python and Java, and has developed tools utilising genetic algorithms, agent-based models, and advanced optimisation techniques.

Stuart Haszeldine, UKCCSRC and University of Edinburgh

As Professor for CCS at the University of Edinburgh, Stuart has created the UK’s largest University group examining CO2 storage geology. He has over 40 years research experience in energy, innovating new approaches to oil and gas, radioactive waste, carbon capture and storage, and biochar. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002 for research on radioactive waste disposal, awarded the Geological Society William Smith Medal in 2011 for work on the geochemistry of oil and gas field reservoir quality, appointed OBE in 2012 for service to climate change technologies. He is also the Director of SCCS and co-Director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute.

Stephen Heath, Creative Chemical Solutions Limited

Stephen holds a BSc Honours in Chemistry and Geology from Cardiff University College and a Pg.Dip in Instrumentation and Analytical Science from the University of Manchester.  He has 35 years oil and gas production chemistry experience and has managed projects for both sandstone and carbonate fields. His technical expertise includes flow assurance, scale, chemical analysis, produced water chemistry and management, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), corrosion, novel deployment techniques and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).  He is also a recognised global subject matter expert (SME) in mineral scale and production chemical analysis. Stephen has held senior roles in several chemical service companies as well as being the Lead Production Chemist at a European operator. He is currently the Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Creative Chemical Solutions Ltd.

Aisha Ibrahim, University of Sheffield

Aisha is a doctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield and a member of the UKCCSRC ECR community. Her research focuses on real-time solvent monitoring strategies for amine-based post-combustion capture (PCC), with an emphasis on achieving ultra-high CO₂ capture rates. Before her PhD, Aisha worked for over five years as a Regulatory Officer in the Nigerian oil and gas sector, where she contributed to gas projects and was responsible for monitoring the transportation and utilisation of domestic gas across key sectors. She also supported the implementation of the Nigerian Gas Transportation Network Code (NGTNC), designed to improve transparency, access, and efficiency in gas infrastructure. Her wider research interests include the operational optimisation of commercial PCC plants and the deployment of best available CCS technologies, policies, and regulations, particularly for application in emerging economies.

Farshad Jafarizadeh, Heriot-Watt University

Farshad is a third-year PhD researcher at Heriot-Watt University, focusing on 4D seismic monitoring of geomechanical effects during CO₂ injection. He has experience in reservoir characterization, 4D seismic monitoring, geomechanics, and the application of AI in energy solutions. Driven by a strong commitment to the energy industry, he is motivated to make a tangible impact on the journey toward Net Zero. In 2024, he was awarded the UKCCSRC Flexible Fund for my project titled “Minimizing Environmental Impacts of CO₂ Storage Projects: Time-Lapse Monitoring of Fault Reactivation for Safe Sequestration”. The research he will present at the UKCCSRC conference is part of this funded project and is supervised by Prof. Colin Macbeth from Heriot-Watt University.

Bryony Livesey, Independent CCS and Chair of the UKCCSRC Board

Bryony led the development and delivery of the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC), part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF).  IDC is a £210m programme of public investment with £261m match funding from industry, designed to deploy low carbon technologies and enabling infrastructure in heavily industrialised regions of the UK.  The programme has played a crucial role in identifying and readying industrial clusters for the next stage of development, with £21 billion of support announced by the government in March 2024.

Bryony was previously Head of Technology at Costain, with responsibility for the identification and development of new technology. She was a member of BEIS’ CCUS Cost Challenge Task Force, a Director of the CCSA (where she co-chaired the Technical Working Group) and chaired the Independent Advisory Panel for the UKCCSRC.  Bryony has extensive experience of a range of advanced technology sectors, including research and development, safety cases and international business, and spent four years as CEO of a company in Japan.  She has a PhD from Cambridge University and is a Chartered Engineer.

Mathieu Lucquiaud, UKCCSRC & University of Sheffield

Mathieu is Professor of Clean Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) at the University of Sheffield, and Deputy Director of the UKCCSRC.  He has worked on CO₂ capture and CCS since 2005 at Imperial College, University of Edinburgh and University Sheffield since 2022.  His current research interests include reducing residual CO₂ emissions from CCS to zero, derisking deployment of post-combustion capture, CCS for thermal power stations and in the waste sector, and Direct Air Capture.

In 2018, Mathieu launched the first Massive Open Online Course on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to increase awareness and understanding of the key role of CCS towards climate change mitigation. The course has now been taken by over 35,000 people in over 150 countries.

Ruissein Mahon, Robert Gordon University

Ruissein is a Chartered Engineer and Lecturer in Energy Engineering at the School of Computing, Engineering and Technology, Robert Gordon University, with her teaching and research portfolio covering the energy landscape – renewables and non-renewable sources of energy. Ruissein is passionate about product ideation, design and development focused on the Energy Trilemma (energy security, affordability and sustainability) and its impact on society, Energy Transition Pathways (Net Zero, Low Carbon Operations, Carbon Capture and Storage, and Hydrogen) and Renewable Energy Systems. She is committed to developing and delivering responsive, solutions-oriented projects that advance the climate change and sustainable development agenda to achieve the global Net Zero targets and specifically Global Goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 13 (Climate Action) and 14 (Life Below Water).

Gwenda McIntyre, Environment Agency

Gwenda is a Senior Advisor in the Environment & Business (E&B) Energy Industries Decarbonisation Team of the Environment Agency. She specialises in Carbon Capture, focusing on technical aspects and providing support and guidance to front line decision makers with Permitting and Compliance roles. Prior to joining E&B she was a Carbon Capture Sector Lead within Permitting. Before joining the Environment Agency as an employee, she worked for 16 years as a Principal Consultant for a global engineering consultancy across a range of industries including energy, oil & gas, and chemicals. Previously she worked for 14 years in industrial R&D for Solvay Interox, Pera and as an independent consultant.

Gwenda is a Chartered Chemist, Chartered Scientist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. She has had a career in the development, design, improvement and management of industrial processes and products to minimise environmental impacts and maintain regulatory compliance.

Alex Milward, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

Alex Milward joined the Civil Service in 2021 after nearly thirty years working in the private sector specialising in leading large scale multi-year programmes within the energy sector focused on organisation transformation, operational improvement, commercial innovation and supply chain. Alex’s experience spans working for large international Oil & Gas companies, as well as water, gas, and electricity utilities.

Alex is co-leading the UK’s Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage Programme within DESNZ. CCUS involves setting the policy, legislative, regulatory and funding frameworks to launch a new carbon capture UK industry in collaboration with the private sector.

Ronak Mistry, Greenovate Solutions

Ronak is a chemical engineer and keen climate change enthusiast with knowledge, management skills & R&D engineering experiences.  He has been working on CCUS as a technology R&D project, an enterprise/start-up & also global policy framework for over a span of three years now and has developed TubeCC technology for Carbon Capture at his start-up Greenovate Solutions.  Greenovate combats climate change by developing CCUS technologies feasible and economic for the low-scale, marginalised SMEs to onboard them on CCUS.

Daniel Mullen, SSE Thermal

Daniel is a chartered engineer with over seven years’ experience in the energy industry and a PhD in Post Combustion CCS. He acts as the CCS technology engineer for SSE Thermal, providing technical support to commercial projects to help them deploy post-combustion CCS to their thermal fleet, notably the proposed CCS enabled CCGTs at Peterhead and Keadby. Daniel also leads SSE Thermals engagement in number of R&D projects, many of which are in partnership with the UKCCSRC and is an avid supporter of open research and knowledge sharing in CCS.

David Parkin, Progressive Energy

David is a Director at Progressive Energy, a low carbon project development company specialising in carbon capture and storage (CCS) and low carbon hydrogen. David has been Progressive Energy’s Project Director for the HyNet project since its inception, and is now Director of the HyNet Alliance, a member body that represents HyNet users. At the forefront of development of CCS and low carbon hydrogen in the UK, David holds a deep understanding of the technical, commercial and regulatory structures necessary for project development and deployment. David holds degrees from Cambridge, Warwick and MIT, is a Fellow and Past President of the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers and is a member of the CCS Ministerial Council.

Belinda Perriman, Convert Well

As co-founder of Convert Well, Belinda is helping Oil & Gas Companies to appreciate the shareholder value that can be created by converting producing gas fields into low-carbon and lower cost/kg hydrogen producers.

Beginning as a well-site petroleum and reservoir engineer in Brunei, Belinda developed reservoir engineering expertise in Gabon and Oman. In Shell Capital, she was a VP for upstream asset-backed lending globally. Back in Shell, she led large complex M&A deals and swaps across several continents and was Chief of Staff for Shell’s Commercial activities in the MENA region. She then led the early stages of the UK Peterhead CCS project for Shell. Since leaving Shell, Belinda has supported Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA) in the development of CCS and Hydrogen business models, responses to HMG Consultations, and by representing TVCA in many of the CCSA activities- including as part of CCSA COP delegations.

David Reiner, University of Cambridge

David is Professor of Technology Policy at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and Assistant Director of the Energy Policy Research Group at Cambridge. He serves on the CCUS Council, which is chaired by the UK Energy Minister and is on the Advisory Board of the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge. He is currently Co-I on a number of UK and European grants related to carbon capture, hydrogen, industrial decarbonisation and greenhouse gas removal. His research is on energy and climate change policy, economics, regulation and public attitudes, with a focus on social license to operate.

Jen Roberts, UKCCSRC & University of Strathclyde

Jen is the UKCCSRC Deputy Director and ECR Programme Lead, as well as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, and Deputy Director of the cross-faculty Strathclyde Institute for Sustainable Communities (SISC). Jen’s research interlinks technical, social and environmental risks for sustainable transitions at different scales, and with particular focus on CO2 geological storage. To date, Jen has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications and +1,000 citations, and she is Deputy-Editor-in-Chief for the journal Earth Science, Systems and Society.

Dimitrios Sykas, University of Strathclyde

Dimitrios is a PhD candidate at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He researches carbon capture through cryogenic distillation onboard maritime vessels and participates in the Green Marine project, which aims at applying and testing membranes for CO2 separation onboard ships. He holds an M.Eng. in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. His areas of interest include systems modelling, thermodynamics and computer programming. He is an active member of various maritime-related societies, such as SNAME, RINA, and IMarEST, a member of the CAPE-OPEN Laboratories Network (CO-LaN) and a new Early Career Researcher member of the UKCCS Research Community.

Stephen Vincent, CASP

Stephen is Chief Geologist at CASP, a not-for-profit geological research organisation based in Cambridge, UK. After completing a fluvial sedimentology PhD at the University of Liverpool, Stephen moved to CASP in 1993 and has conducted regional field-based research in multiple parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, leading research projects on the Black and South Caspian seas since the turn of the millennia. He became Chief Geologist in 2019 and has helped oversee CASP’s pivot towards energy transition research.

Jasper Wong, Airhive

Jasper is a founder and CTO at Airhive, a direct air capture company based in London, founded in 2022. Airhive have built a 1,000 tonne per annum direct air capture demonstration in at the Deep Sky Alpha site in Alberta, Canada and recently competed as a finalist in the Carbon Removal XPRIZE. Jasper’s research and work are focused on climate mitigation technologies, with expertise designing, building, and scaling carbon capture and green hydrogen-based processes in academia and industry. He has published in high-impact journals and led technology development from prototype to commercial demonstration scales. Jasper holds a BA and MEng from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London.

 Presentations from our conference sessions are available below (where we have permission to share them).

Posters from the poster reception on Wednesday 10th September 2025 will be shared below (where we have permission to share).