A team of researchers have been granted £6.7 million to find new advanced materials for the energy sector.

The government-funded Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) made the investment.

Scientists at the University of Liverpool and University College London will design and test new materials “to keep the UK ahead in the global materials competition”.

Professor Matthew Rosseinsky, who will lead the research, said: “With the approaches we will develop, we aim to address problems such as how to create materials for sustainable energy production and storage such as safer new battery technologies or the efficient capture and utilisation of solar energy.

“We will combine computation and experiment to discover new materials, developing methods that combine calculation with chemical understanding.”