THERMINATOR Stakeholder spotlight – Today with Electrosciences Limited
Who are the THERMINATOR partners driving innovation in waste heat recovery and next-generation energy conversion across Europe?
Our Partner Interview Series highlights the leading organisations in the THERMINATOR consortium, showcasing their expertise, contributions, and key roles in the project.
Each partner also shares its vision of how THERMINATOR contributes to Europe’s energy transition and the European Green Deal objectives—by advancing innovative waste heat recovery technologies and developing a novel thermoacoustic and electrocaloric energy conversion “skin” to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions.
Discover our latest interview to learn more about Electrosciences Limited and its impact!
Briefly introduce your organisation
Electrosciences Limited provides specialised scientific and technical consultancy to industry and the wider research community in the technical discipline of multifunctional materials research and development. Our expertise includes providing bespoke solutions to your scientific and technical needs in advanced materials used for sensors, actuators, transducers, haptics and other applications. We have experimental and materials modelling capabilities in-house. Sound metrology (measurement science) is central to all our work and we support BSI, and ISO standards development in advanced piezo materials and quantum metrology. We have more than 40 years of experience in materials science and the physics of the solid state.
Introduce the team working on THERMINATOR within your organisation
Professor Markys G. Cain is Technical Director and founder of Electrosciences Ltd, with over 25 years’ experience in applied R&D across academic and industrial settings. After completing a BSc in Physics and PhD in Materials Physics at Warwick University, he worked at UC Santa Barbara, then on advanced materials projects with industry partners including Rolls Royce. At the National Physical Laboratory, he founded and led the Functional Materials Metrology Research group, developing measurement methods for ferroelectric, piezoelectric, multiferroic, energy harvesting and storage materials. He has published over 150 papers, authored a Springer book, and holds several professional honours and appointments.
What is your organisation’s role in the project? What unique contribution does it bring to THERMINATOR?
Electrosciences’ role is one of scientific coordinator and supply of measurement characterisation facilities and capabilities for evaluating pyroelectric/electrocaloric materials and also expertise in analytical and finite element modelling, simulation and visualisation of these materials in the complex configurations present in the projects’ demonstrators.
To what extent do you think THERMINATOR will contribute to improving energy efficiency and supporting Europe’s transition towards climate neutrality?
The project highlights the need to a) reduce consumption of power wherever possible, and b) if waste heat is produced in any process or computation for example then THERMINATOR goals and THERMINATOR technology can harvest some of that waste to autonomously power the cooling technology which moves heat away from the source.
In your opinion, what role will advanced thermal energy conversion technologies play in shaping more sustainable and energy-efficient industries, buildings, and transport systems in Europe?
In managing our energy consumption any technology that is sustainable and affordable (complete life cycle affordable) will play a role in managing that efficiency and/or in turning waste heat into something of more value to people, society and the planet. Electricity is one such example but there are other ways in which heat can be diverted to do something useful.
