Funded by International Innovation Team, CAS, a group of experts (Dr. Yaodong Wang, Dr. Barbara Sturm and Dr. Richard Law) from Newcastle University visited IET on Sep. 18th, 2012. Director of science and technology department Haisheng Chen chaired the academic exchange conference, with more than 30 researchers and students from IET attending. Focusing on topics such as energy utilization, industry energy conservation, food industry energy management, three researchers gave wonderful academic reports combined with their own research experiences. After the reports, the scene audiences took lively discussion with three researchers.

In the report, Dr. Yaodong Wang firstly gave a brief introduction of the overview and relevant research directions of Newcastle University, Institute of Sustainable Development of NewcastleUniversity, and SWAN Energy Research Center. Their researches involved in distributed energy utilization, marine power, building energy conservation, industry energy conservation, biomass fuel, social development and energy management, etc.. Dr. Yaodong Wang and his group mainly engaged in the researches of biomass fuel engine, distributed CCHP, free piston engine, marine power. Following that, Dr. Barbara Sturm gave a report on the topic of opportunities and challenges that medium-sized breweries were facing in effective utilization of energy. Studies on apples drying, including the impacts of temperature and air velocity on the drying dynamics and the product quality, optimization of drying process, were also introduced. Dr. Richard Law’s report focused on the low-grade energy recovery in British food / beverage industry.

During their visit, three scientists also participated in an energy management research together with researchers from IET. Taking the production process of a food manufacturer as an example, researchers from two sides had a discussion on the methods of energy saving and application of new energy.