We use cookies to improve your experience on our site and to show you personalised advertising. To find out more, read our privacy policy and cookie policy

Skip to Content
University of Wollongong Australia. Logo. University of Wollongong Australia. Logo. University of Wollongong Australia. Logo.
  • Search
  • Library
  • Current Students
  • Staff
  • UOW Global
    • Our global presence
    • UOW in Dubai
    • UOW in Hong Kong
    • UOW in Malaysia
  • Menu
  • Study at UOW

    • Courses
    • Apply
    • Scholarships & grants
    • Accommodation
    • High-school students
    • Non-school leavers
    • Postgraduate students
    • International students
    • Moving to Wollongong
    • Study abroad & exchange
    • Global sports programs
    • Campuses
    Study at UOW
  • Engage

    • Future student
    • Alumni
    • Visit UOW
    • Jobs
    • Volunteer
    • The Stand Magazine
    • Community Members
    • Grants and funding
    • Give to UOW
    • Visit the Library
    • Key contacts
    • Educators & school teachers
    Engage with us
  • About UOW

    • Welcome
    • Our people
    • Services
    • Contacts
    • What's on
    • Global presence
    • Media Centre
    • Faculties & schools
    • Our vision & strategy
    • Our Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Strategy
    • Our reputation & experience
    • Locations, campuses & partners
    See more about UOW
  • Research

    • Our research
    • Researcher support
    • Research impact
    • Partnership & collaboration
    • Graduate Research School
    • Commercial research
    • Global Challenges
    • Media, news & events
    • Find an expert
    • Our people
    See more about research
  • Industry

    • Generator Lab
    • Advantage SME
    • Success stories
    • Industry research engagement
    • Equipment & Labs
    • Funding opportunities
    • Intellectual property
    • Collaboration for business
    • Collaboration for researchers
    See more about Industry
  • Alumni

    • Benefits
    • Outlook Magazine
    • Events & webinars
    • Volunteer
    • Awards
    • Honorary alumni
    • Testamurs & transcripts
    • Update your details
    • Your career journey
    • Contact us & FAQ
    See more about alumni
  • Quick links

    • Contact directory
    • Staff Intranet
    • Campus maps
    • Transport & parking
    • Key dates
    • Events
    • Password management
    • Jobs
    • Accommodation
    • Policy directory
  • Library
You are here More Pages
  • Home
  • About UOW
  • Media Centre
  • 2021
  • Funding win for UOW energy and cybersecurity projects

Media Quick Links

  • Contact UOW Media
  • Visiting campus
  • Image library
  • UOW key facts
  • Find an expert
  • News Corp subscription
  • Sign up for the latest news from UOW Media

March 24, 2021


  • Story By
  • Benjamin Long
  • Photo By
  • Paul Jones
Share
Type
Media Release
Category
Science and Technology
Tags
Clean energyEngineeringInformation & Communication TechnologyResearchSDG 7: Affordable and Clean EnergySDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

UOW in the News

Funding win for UOW energy and cybersecurity projects

Industry collaborations to generate electricity from waste heat; improve data security for cloud computing


Two University of Wollongong (UOW) projects have been awarded funding under the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Linkage Projects scheme, which supports collaboration between researchers, industry, governments, and community organisations.

UOW researchers will also collaborate on two other research projects funded under the scheme.

Federal Minister for Education and Youth Alan Tudge announced the successful projects today (Wednesday 24 March 2021).

In total, $29.5 million in funding was awarded to 65 new research projects aimed at promoting national and international research partnerships to find real-world solutions to a wide array of issues.

“These projects will keep Australia at the forefront of important technological research, and they have the potential to create real-world advances in agriculture, renewable energy and space technology,” Mr Tudge said.

One of the successful UOW projects, led by Distinguished Professor Xiaolin Wang, Director of UOW’s Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM) and the node leader and theme leader of ARC Center of Excellence in Future Low Energy Electronics Technologies, will investigate ways to generate electricity from waste heat efficiently and make high performance cooling devices.

The other, led by Senior Professor Willy Susilo, Head of UOW’s School of Computing and Information Technology, aims to develop innovative cryptographic technologies which realise efficient multi-key homomorphic encryptions (MKHE). This key technology functions to allow multiple users to supply their private input for collaboration in the cloud while keeping the user data confidential.

Distinguished Professor Shi Xue Dou from ISEM will be a key contributor to a University of Queensland-led project to develop a lightweight, easy-to-operate magnesium diboride superconducting MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) magnet able to obtain high-resolution images at a low-cost.

Professor Richard Fullagar, from UOW’s Centre for Archaeological Science, will contribute his expertise to a Flinders University-led project, undertaken in partnership with the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation, which aims to explore Aboriginal rock art and rock shelter occupation deposits in the Upper Murray River Gorge, South Australia.

Converting waste heat to electricity

Professor Wang and his team – Dr Zengji Yue and Dr David Cortie from ISEM and Dr Kirrily Rule from UOW’s School of Physics – were awarded $400,551 for their project to develop materials for harvesting heat into energy, which will position Australian academics and industries at the forefront of next generation of renewable power generation and refrigeration products.

This project was based on Professor Wang’s recent ground-breaking work on the record high thermoelectric performance in nano-engineered topological materials, which has attracted extensive interest.

Distinguished Professor Xiaolin Wang, Director of UOW’s Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM) and the node leader and theme leader of ARC Center of Excellence in Future Low Energy Electronics Technologies

Distinguished Professor Xiaolin Wang, Director of UOW’s Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM) and the node leader and theme leader of ARC Center of Excellence in Future Low Energy Electronics Technologies, is researching technologies to convert waste heat into electricity.

“The potential to create electricity from waste heat in Australia has not been tapped significantly due to the lack of suitable waste-heat-to-electricity conversion technology,” Professor Wang said.

Thermoelectricity is one of the most promising technologies for waste heat conversion, but the biggest challenge has been to find a reliable, high performing and cost-effective thermoelectric material that can work at a broad range of temperatures.

This project’s successful implementation will provide the impetus for manufacturing, mining, renewable energy and other industries to adopt strategies for the sustainable adoption of clean energy-conversion technology.

“It is clear that the community and end-users stand to benefit greatly from the adoption of highly efficient energy-conversion technology, and one of the promising applications is the ultra-low temperature freezers for COVID19 vaccine storage” Professor Wang said.

“At a broader level, the project will aid the national interest to meet future economic, social and climate requirements around emissions, worker safety and health while substantially improving the productivity and enabling reduced operational costs.”

Partner organisations on the project are Azure Mining Technology, Natural Tech Imports, and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.

Keeping user data confidential in the cloud

Professor Susilo and his team – Associate Professor Guomin Yang, Dr Dung Duong, Dr Fuchun Guo and Dr Jie Yang, all from the School of Computing and Information Technology – were awarded $331,898 for their project to develop encryption technology to allow multiple users to collaborate in the cloud while keeping their user data confidential.

IEEE Fellw Senior Professor Willy Susilo

Senior Professor Willy Susilo, Head of UOW’s School of Computing and Information Technology, has been awarded an ARC Linkage Grant to develop innovative cryptographic technologies.

“Cheap cloud computing and cloud storage have fundamentally changed how businesses and individuals use and manage their data.” Professor Susilo said.

“Traditional encryption methods are extremely fast, and allow data to be stored conveniently in encrypted form. However, to perform even simple analytics on the encrypted data, either the cloud server needs access to the secret key, which leads to security concerns, or the owner of the data needs to download, decrypt, and operate on the data locally, which can be costly and create a logistic challenge.”

Homomorphic encryption (HE) aims to solve this issue, but is restricted to a single user, which limits the collaboration of many organisations in joining their data for analysis while keeping their data confidential.

Multi-key HE (MKHE) promises a perfect solution, but is very challenging to realise.

“The aim of this project is solve this challenge,” Professor Susilo said.

“This project aims to place Australia at the forefront of efforts to enable efficient MKHE - hence, enabling efficient cloud adoption for secure collaboration by industry in practice.

“This will provide direct economic benefits to Australian industry through the enablement of advanced technologies and low-cost business solutions which are developed in Australia.”

Partner organisations on the project are Vivo Global Investment and Wubei Design International.

Media Assets for this article

  • Images

Media Contacts for this article

UOW Media Office

You may also be interested in

UOW PhD graduate receives prestigious gold medal from nuclear institute
UOW welcomes commitment to fund Energy Futures Skills Centre
How a childhood by the sea inspired Professor Richard Kenchington’s career
Services & Help
  • Current students
  • Library
  • Information technology
  • Accommodation
  • Security & safety
  • Pool, gym & retail
News, Media & Events
  • Media Centre
  • The Stand
  • Alumni Magazine
  • Research news
  • Events
  • Find an expert
Faculties
  • Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities
  • Business & Law
  • Engineering & Information Sciences
  • Science, Medicine & Health
Administration
  • Graduation
  • Environment
  • Policy directory
  • Learning and teaching
  • Financial Services
  • Access to information
  • Jobs
UOW Entities
  • Innovation Campus
  • UOW College Australia
  • UOW College Hong Kong
  • UOW in Dubai
  • UOW Global Enterprises
  • UOW Malaysia KDU
  • UOW Pulse
Connect with us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Conversation
  • Contact us
  • Feedback
  • Give to UOW

Northfields Ave Wollongong,  NSW 2522  Australia 
Phone: 1300 367 869 
International: +61 2 4221 3218 
Switchboard: +61 2 4221 3555

  • NUW Alliance: Smarter Solutions for NSW
  • University Global Partnership Network (UGPN)
  • Reconciliation Australia

Aboriginal flag Torres Strait Islander flag

On the lands that we study, we walk, and we live, we acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians and cultural knowledge holders of these lands.

Copyright © 2022 University of Wollongong
CRICOS Provider No: 00102E | TEQSA Provider ID: PRV12062 | ABN: 61 060 567 686
Copyright & disclaimer | Privacy & cookie usage | Web accessibility

Close