Energy Innovation

Entry requirements

Applicants must normally hold an undergraduate degree at 2:1 level (or Non-UK equivalent as defined by Swansea University) in Chemical or Biochemical Engineering, or a related discipline, such as chemistry, biochemistry, physics, or other engineering or related discipline.

Months of entry

January, April, July, October

Course content

Providing a sustainable, affordable and secure energy future through the discovery and implementation of new technology and innovation is a key challenge for the 21st Century. With more people requiring energy, effective solutions need to come from a wide range of sources. For the near term various energy innovations are needed and will be the key to global energy solutions.

The Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) is a leading centre of excellence for the development of advanced technologies in energy resources, and can host many of these students.

ESRI's research areas, broadly speaking, fit into the following categories:

• Hydrocarbon: Oil and gas production and processing; downstream issues relating to efficient fuel refining; additives and fuel composition/performance chemistry.
• Hydrogen: technologies for the efficient generation of hydrogen from wasted energy generation; photocatalysis for hydrogen generation; hydrogen as an energy vector, solar energy harvesting.
• CO2: technologies for the efficient removal of carbon dioxide from fuel feedstocks; use of carbon dioxide as a fuel source.
• Biofuel: methods for developing the process streams enabling integration of biofuel production with the chemistry industry supply chain.
• Energy transmission: Smart grids and carbon nanotube conductors.
• Wave and ocean technologies:
• Computer modelling: Energy related fields such as oil wells and energy grids.
• Other projects involving energy and innovation: We are not limited by supervisor or by topic so if you have ideas of a specific topic yourself or are a company wishing to sponsor a student o investigate a specific energy related topic them please contact us.

We are ranked:

• Top 251-300 in the World for Chemical Engineering (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026)