Scientific programmes

Research areas

Twelve programmes across three departments.

Energy

Sodium-ion, iron flow batteries, lead-carbon: the physics of storage outside the lithium supply chain.

Imported modules are qualified for temperate or desert climates. Their ageing physics under permanent 80 % humidity is a blind spot.

Cement plants, breweries and diesel gensets reject gigawatts of heat. Electron–phonon transport in earth-abundant materials.

Pyrolysis and gasification kinetics of cocoa and palm residues, heat transfer in fixed beds, catalysts.

Flood and low-flow regimes under climate variability, fluid mechanics of low-head turbines.

Electromigration, board-level corrosion, moisture diffusion in encapsulants, thermomechanical solder-joint fatigue.

SiC and GaN tolerate heat and overvoltage better than silicon. Traps, defects and interface transport.

The Congo basin is the most thunderstorm-prone region on Earth, and the physics of lightning–grid coupling there is almost unexplored.

Indium-free transparent conducting oxides, iron-based soft magnetic materials, dielectric ceramics.

DFT, molecular dynamics, multiphysics simulation: electronic structure, phonon transport and point defects.

A country without secondary standards can neither certify nor export. Fundamental physics with immediate industrial impact.

Air conditioning is the largest tertiary-sector electricity load. Phase-change materials, bio-based insulation, coupled transfers.