Contact Professor Upul KG Wijayantha
- Tel: +44 (0) 1234 752955
- Email: Upul.Wijayantha@cranfield.ac.uk
- ORCID
Areas of expertise
- Carbon Capture and Storage
- Conventional & Advanced Fuels
- Fuels
- Renewable Energy
- Smart Materials
- Low Carbon Technology
Current activities
Professor Wijayantha has considerable expertise in low-carbon H2 technologies, electrochemical energy storage, energy materials and the circular chemical economy, having led industrial development of green H2 production in the UK that were then expanded to the US. He currently serves on two technical task groups of the International Energy Agency, and is part of the team behind HyDEX, a project aiming to accelerate innovation in H2 by supporting SMEs to develop the technologies and skills needed.
He graduated with BSc (Hon) and then received MPhil from the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. He was awarded a PhD from the University of Bath, UK. After working in Bath University (as a PDRA) and then in industry, he moved to Loughborough University where he worked until April 2022 as a Professor of Physical Chemistry.
He recently worked with Midlands Engine, Energy Research Accelerator, academics, industries and local government representatives to develop the UK Midlands pan regional green growth plan (Green Growth | Midlands Engine). He co-leads industrial engagement in the UKRI Interdisciplinary Centre for Circular Chemical Economy (Welcome - National Centre for Circular Chemical Economy (circular-chemical.org), and is a co-director of the UK EPSRC Centre of Doctoral Training in Sustainable H2 (Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Hydrogen (sustainablehydrogen-cdt.ac.uk). He is the immediate past Chair of the RSC Electrochemistry Group, and a current member of the RSC Midlands Steering Group Committee.
Prof Wijayantha is an Editor of Materials Today Energy (Editorial board - Materials Today Energy | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier). He also serves in editorials boards of RJS (2017 – to date), Circuit World (2018 – to date) and Chemosensors (2020 – to date).
He has organised many conferences and showcases and the most recent events include the H2 & Fuel Cell Autumn Showcase 2022 (https://www.climate-change-solutions.co.uk/event/cranfield-university-hydrogen-showcase/) and H2 & Fuel Cell Autumn Showcase 2019 (https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2019/december/lboro-uni-host-sustainable-hydrogen-showcase).
His current research interests include hydrogen in a whole system (production, storage, transport, distribution and end-use), electrochemical energy storage, energy materials and the circular chemical economy.
He is also a visiting Professor at the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology in Loughborough University (CREST | Loughborough University (lboro.ac.uk)).
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Mukelabai MD, Wijayantha KGU & Blanchard RE (2023) Using machine learning to expound energy poverty in the global south: understanding and predicting access to cooking with clean energy, Energy and AI, 14 (October) Article No. 100290.
- Baptista J, Shacklock J, Shaban M, Alkayal A, Lobato K & Wijayantha U (2023) Superior rate capability of high mass loading supercapacitors fabricated with carbon recovered from methane cracking, Inorganics, 11 (8) Article No. 316. Dataset/s: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.23767908
- Howard NS, Archer AJ, Sibley DN, Southee DJ & Wijayantha KGU (2023) Surfactant control of coffee ring formation in carbon nanotube suspensions, Langmuir, 39 (3) 929-941.
- Mukelabai MD, Wijayantha KGU & Blanchard RE (2022) Hydrogen technology adoption analysis in Africa using a Doughnut-PESTLE hydrogen model (DPHM), International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 47 (74) 31521-31540.
- Baptista JM, Gaspar G, Wijayantha KGU & Lobato K (2022) Electrodeposited poly(phenylene oxide) suppresses anodic parasitic processes in carbon-based supercapacitor electrodes operating in an aqueous electrolyte, Journal of Energy Storage, 52, Part B (August) Article No. 104927.
- Jenkins B, Squires D, Barton J, Strickland D, Wijayantha KGU, Carroll J, Wilson J, Brenton M & Thomson M (2022) Techno-economic analysis of low carbon hydrogen production from offshore wind using battolyser technology, Energies, 15 (16) Article No. 5796.
- Mukelabai MD, Wijayantha UKG & Blanchard RE (2022) Renewable hydrogen economy outlook in Africa, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 167 (October) Article No. 112705.
- Gunawardhana KRS, Wanasekara ND, Wijayantha KG & Dharmasena RDI (2022) Scalable textile manufacturing methods for fabricating triboelectric nanogenerators with balanced electrical and wearable properties, ACS Applied Electronic Materials, 4 (2) 678-688.
- Dudem B, Dharmasena RDIG, Riaz R, Vivekananthan V, Wijayantha KGU, Lugli P, Petti L & Silva SRP (2022) Wearable triboelectric nanogenerator from waste materials for autonomous information transmission via Morse code, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 14 (4) 5328-5337.
- Baptista M, Gaspar G, Wijayantha KGU & Lobato K (2022) The impact of laser-scribing carbon-based supercapacitor electrodes, Applied Surface Science Advances, 10 (August) Article No. 100262.
- Dharmasena RDIG & Wijayantha KGU (2021) Theoretical and experimental investigation into the asymmetric external charging of Triboelectric Nanogenerators, Nano Energy, 90 Article No. 106511.
- McGhee JR, Goulas A, Southee DJ, Sagu JS, Engstrøm DS, Wang J, Hutt DA, Evans PSA, Zhou Z, Wijayantha KGU, Conway P & Carmalt CJ (2020) Indium tin oxide nanowires manufactured via printing and laser irradiation, Applied Materials Today, 21 Article No. 100835.
- Alessa H, Mumthas INN, Mohamad Noh MF, Sagu J, Wijayantha KGU & Mat Teridi MA (2020) Rapid fabrication of efficient P-type perovskite-sensitized solar cells using hot-air drying method, Materials Letters, 270 Article No. 127412.
- Alessa H, Noh MFM, Mumthas INN, Wijayantha KGU & Teridi MAM (2020) Outstanding photocurrent density and incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency of liquid-state NiO perovskite-sensitized solar cells, Physica Status Solidi A, 217 (8) Article No. 1900607.
- McGhee JR, Sagu JS, Southee DJ, Evans PSA & Wijayantha KGU (2020) Ferrite-based room temperature negative temperature coefficient printed thermistors, Electronics Letters, 56 (24) 1322-1324.
- Hussein Sheik A, Montazersadgh F, Starov VM, Trybala A, Wijayantha KGU & Bandulasena HCH (2020) Electrokinetic transport of a charged dye in a freely suspended liquid film: experiments and numerical simulations, Langmuir, 36 (5) 1183-1191.
- McGhee JR, Sagu JS, Southee DJ, Evans PSA & Wijayantha KGU (2020) Printed, fully metal oxide, capacitive humidity sensors using conductive indium tin oxide inks, ACS Applied Electronic Materials, 2 (11) 3593-3600.
- Jayathilake DSY, Sagu JS & Wijayantha KGU (2019) Transparent heater based on Al,Ga co-doped ZnO thin films, Materials Letters, 237 249-252.
- Brack P, Dann SE, Wijayantha KGU, Adcock P & Foster S (2019) Synthesis of activated ferrosilicon-based microcomposites by ball milling and their hydrogen generation properties, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 44 (35) 19113-19127.
- McInnes A, Sagu JS, Mehta D & Wijayantha KGU (2019) Low-cost fabrication of tunable band gap composite indium and gallium nitrides, Scientific Reports, 9 Article No. 2313.
- Walls JM, Sagu JS & Wijayantha KGU (2019) Microwave synthesised Pd-TiO2 for photocatalytic ammonia production, RSC Advances, 9 (11) 6387-6394.
- Alfaifi BY, Tahir AA & Wijayantha KGU (2019) Fabrication of Bi2WO6 photoelectrodes with enhanced photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic performance, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 195 134-141.
- Sagu JS, Mehta D & Wijayantha KGU (2018) Electrocatalytic activity of CoFe2O4 thin films prepared by AACVD towards the oxygen evolution reaction in alkaline media, Electrochemistry Communications, 87 1-4.
- Wijesinghe WP, Mantilaka MM, Peiris TN, Rajapakse RM, Wijayantha KGU, Pitawala HM, Premachandra TN, Herath HM & Rajapakse RP (2018) Preparation and characterization of mesoporous hydroxyapatite with non-cytotoxicity and heavy metal adsorption capacity, New Journal of Chemistry, 42 (12) 10271-10278.
- Wijesinghe WL, Mantilaka MM, Rajapakse RM, Pitawala HM, Premachandra TN, Herath HM, Rajapakse RP & Wijayantha KGU (2017) Urea-assisted synthesis of hydroxyapatite nanorods from naturally occurring impure apatite rocks for biomedical applications, RSC Advances, 7 (40) 24806-24812.
- McInnes A, Plant SR, Ornelas IM, Palmer RE & Wijayantha KGU (2017) Enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting using oxidized mass-selected Ti nanoclusters on metal oxide photoelectrodes, Sustainable Energy and Fuels, 1 (2) 336-344.
- Brack P, Dann SE, Wijayantha KGU, Adcock P & Foster S (2017) Elucidating the process of hydrogen generation from the reaction of sodium hydroxide solution and ferrosilicon, International Journal of Energy Research, 41 (12) 1740-1748.
