Dr Lydia Pickering

Lydia Pickering graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Sport and Materials Science at the University of Birmingham in 2009, after which she went on to study a PhD on Ti-based metal hydrides for hydrogen storage and compression applications under the supervision of Professor David Book.

After obtaining her PhD, Lydia worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in both the Hydrogen Materials Group and Magnetic Materials Group at the University of Birmingham from 2013-2015, working on UK and EU funded projects ESCHER (Reference Number: EP/K021117/1) and REPROMAG (Agreement Number: 636881).  

In 2016, Lydia relocated to South Africa to take up a Postdoctoral position at HySA Systems, based at the University of the Western Cape. During her time at HySA Systems, Lydia was involved with scaling up and optimising the production of metal hydrides for fuel cell powered mining vehicles as part of the Department of Science and Technology Key Project KP3-S02.

Lydia returned to the UK in late 2018 to resume a position in the Magnetic Materials Group and is currently working on the EU SUSMAGPRO project (Grant Agreement Number: No 821114). As part of the SUSMAGPRO project, Lydia’s work involves recycling end of life NdFeB permanent magnets from a range of end of life NdFeB-containing products (including hard disk drives, wind turbine generators, loudspeakers) using the hydrogen decrepitation (HD) process.

Lydia’s research interests include metal-hydrogen interactions for permanent magnet and metal hydride applications; recovery and recycling of NdFeB rare earth permanent magnets; hydrogen storage and hydrogen compression applications; materials and magnetic characterisation; alloy synthesis methods and the effect of elemental substitution.

Short Bio

Dr Lydia Pickering is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Magnetic Materials Group in the School of Metallurgy & Materials at the University of Birmingham. Lydia is currently working on the SUSMAGPRO project (EU Horizon 2020, Grant Agreement Number: No 821114) and her work involves recycling NdFeB permanent magnets from end of life products using the hydrogen decrepitation process. Her research interests include metal-hydrogen interactions for permanent magnet and metal hydride applications, recovery and recycling of NdFeB and materials & magnetic characterisation.

Publications

Jönsson, C., Awais, M., Pickering, L., Zhou, W., Bradshaw, A., Sheridan, R., Degri, M., Mann, V., Walton, A. The extraction of NdFeB magnets from automotive scrap rotors using hydrogen. Journal of Cleaner Production. In press (2020) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124058

Önal, M. A. R., Dewilde, S., Degri, M., Pickering, L., Saje, B., Riaño, S., Walton, A., Binnemans, K. Recycling of bonded NdFeB permanent magnets using ionic liquids. Green Chemistry, Volume 22 (2020) p2821-2830. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0GC00647E

Fashu, S., Lototskyy, M., Davids, M. W., Pickering, L., Linkov, V., Tai, S., Renheng, T., Fangming, X., Fursikov, P. V., Tarasov, B. P. A review on crucibles for induction melting of titanium alloys. Materials and Design, Volume 186 (2020) p 108295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2019.108295

Pickering, L., Lototskyy, M. V., Davids, M. W., Sita, C., Linkov, V. Induction melted AB2-type metal hydrides for hydrogen storage and compression applications. Materials Today Proceedings, Volume 5 (2018) p10470–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2017.12.378

Lototskyy, M., Klochko, Y., Wafeeq, M., Pickering, L., Swanepoel, D., Louw, G., Westhuizen, B., Chidziva, S., Sita, C., Bladergroen, B., Linkov, V. Industrial-scale metal hydride hydrogen compressors developed at the South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry. Materials Today Proceedings, Volume 5 (2018) p10514–10523. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2017.12.383

Lototskyy, M. V., Tolj, I., Pickering, L., Sita, C., Barbir, F., Yartys, V. The use of metal hydrides in fuel cell applications. Progress in Natural Science: Materials International, Volume 27 (2017) p3–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pnsc.2017.01.008

Pickering, L., Reed, D., Bevan, A. I., Book D. Ti–V–Mn based metal hydrides for hydrogen compression applications. Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Volume 645 (2015) pS400–403. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2014.12.098

Gkanas, E. I., Grant, D. M., Stuart, A. D., Eastwick, C. N., Book, D., Nayebossadri, S., Pickering, L., Walker, G. S. Numerical study on a two-stage Metal Hydride Hydrogen Compression system. Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Volume 645 (2015) pS18–S22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2015.03.123

Pickering, L., Li, J., Reed, D., Bevan, A. I., Book, D. Ti–V–Mn based metal hydrides for hydrogen storage. Journal of Alloys and Compounds, Volume 580 (2013) pS233–S237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2013.03.208

Networks

Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)

Member of The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)