Zarashpe Kapadia

Interdisciplinary MSc/PhD in the Doctoral Training Centre for Low Carbon Technologies

Project Title: The Impact of Bio and Synthetic Fuel Combustion on Air Quality and Climate

For more information about Zarashpe's projects please visit his personal website.

I am in my first year, currently focusing mainly on the MSc component of my course. This involves completing two mini projects. The first of which looked at the 'Emissions from the Transport Sector,' with the second one that I’m currently writing up looks at 'Carbon Capture and Storage in the Yorkshire and Humberside region.' In addition to these projects I have studied modules in ‘Climate Change: The Physical Sciences Basis,’ ‘Climate Change Mitigation’ and ‘Global Issues in Transport,’ all focused on enabling me to drive my research forward.

In response to the interest in the use of bio and synthetic-fuels to replace fossil fuels in the aviation sector, through my research I aim assess the global impact of combustion of alternative fuels in the aviation sector on future air quality and climate.

Starting this summer my research will utilise experimental and theoretical data on combustion emissions for a range of alternative fuels, which will be synthesised and combined with scenarios of future alternative fuel use to scale emissions to the regional and global scale. My research project will focus on both the air quality implications associated with the use of these alternative fuels, work that will be conducted with the Centre of Computational Fluid Dynamics which is part of the School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering (SPEME). Along with the implications these alternative fuels will have on climate modelling, work that will be conducted with the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Group (ACCG) within the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (ICAS), which all fall under the School of Earth and Environment.

The climate modelling aspect of this project will use Met Office climate models in conjunction with global atmospheric models that have been developed in ICAS (e.g. GLOMAP) to assess the regional and global implications for air quality and climate.