Our Technical Manager Dr Jafar Daji recently attended the flagship UK Ceramics Industry Decarbonisation Conference “Delivering Net Zero for British Ceramics 2023”; organised by the British Ceramic Confederation.

Jafar and Parkinson Spencer Refractories were delighted to be presented with two industry awards, and Jaafar was also able to share research project updates with the delegates.

This year’s conference, in its second year, was held at Staffordshire University. Its focus was to promote and celebrate the sector’s activities in continuing to drive the sector’s net zero transition on ongoing decarbonisation initiatives and related developments crucial to ceramics’ progress towards net zero. It was a great day that gave people an opportunity to network, to celebrate their achievements and to showcase the work being done in their endeavour to reach Net Zero.

Jajar received his Individual Recognition award for his engagement in all the sector support sessions and projects, helping PSR and the ceramics industry in their drive towards Net Zero.

PSR also received a Special Recognition award in the SME Decarbonisation category for its commitment to decarbonisation through investment in on-site renewable electricity and voltage optimisation systems, and engagement in research projects such as PSR’s Low CO2 Refractories for the Foundation Industries project and the BCC’s Hydrogen project.

Following the event, Jafar, said:

It was an honour and a pleasure to receive both, an individual award and an award on behalf of PSR, for contribution to decarbonisation and recognising the efforts being made by undertaking a number of projects and activities. Congratulations to all the other winners too.

This conference provided an opportunity for Jafar to network with like-minded industry professions, give his input into the industry’s challenges towards 2050 net zero, and share some of the progress and findings from ongoing research projects.

In particular, Jafar has been the PSR lead on a project funded by the UK Government’s ‘Transforming Foundation Industries’ (TFI) Challenge fund, and working in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) and the British Ceramic Confederation (BCC).

This project has focused on finding a cost-effective solution to reduce energy consumption in the refractory manufacturing process; investigating the addition of dopants to enable firing at lower temperatures or for shorter times, reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Current refractory manufacturing methods include long firing cycles where substantial energy savings and corresponding reduction in CO2 emissions could be achieved by reducing the lengths of firing cycles.

Click here to read our previous update about this project and what out for our technical article in Glass International about outcomes.