The use of biofuels, as a renewable source of energy has become increasingly important. More in particular, biofuels for transport have the potential to displace a substantial amount of petroleum around the world. The EU is aiming to achieve at least 10% of road fuel derived from plants by 2020. The Carbon Trust selected "Pyrolysis Challenge" as the first strand of Bioenergy Accelerator with £10m investment, highlighting the importance of pyrolysis-oil as the potential replacement for transport fuels with low system GHG (green house gases) emissions. While fast pyrolysis oils have the potential to be processed in existing petroleum refinery infrastructure to transportation fuels, our ability to process the oil requires improved understanding of how to control its chemical composition and improve its physical properties. Current fast-pyrolysis oils are inherently unstable due to their high oxygen content and acidity which leads to polymerisation of reactive components and subsequent viscosity increase via polymer formation which hinders direct refining. Catalytic processes are thus required capable of transforming fast pyrolysis oils such that their acidity and oxygen content is reduced under moderate conditions thereby improving oil stability and allowing direct refining. To minimise energy inputs, it would be desirable to catalytically treat pyrolysis oil vapours immediately after the pyrolyser using a close coupled catalytic reactor to facilitate deoxygenation, chain growth and/or aromatisation of molecules. Such an approach would minimise extra energy inputs but also reduce polymerisation routes into more intractable resins. To achieve these goals we propose to explore non-precious metal de-oxygenation cracking catalysts including doped zeolite materials and bifunctional Fe based catalysts for pre-treatment of pyrolysis oil vapours. By working in the vapour phase we should eliminate some of the problems currently associated with the use of such catalysts in liquid phase processes where leaching by acidic components and char deposition leads to deactivation. The impact of pre-treatment on overall final hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of bio-oil will also be evaluated. These routes to refinery feedstocks will be compared technically and economically.

Manufacture Using Advanced Powder Processes - MAPP Conventional materials shaping and processing are hugely wasteful and energy intensive. Even with well-structured materials circulation strategies in place to recondition and recycle process scrap, the energy use, CO2 emitted and financial costs associated are ever more prohibitive and unacceptable. We can no longer accept the traditional paradigm of manufacturing where excess energy use and high levels of recycling / down cycling of expensive and resource intensive materials are viewed as inevitable and the norm and must move to a situation where 100% of the starting material is incorporated into engineering products with high confidence in the final critical properties. MAPP's vision is to deliver on the promise of powder-based manufacturing processes to provide low energy, low cost, and low waste high value manufacturing route and products to secure UK manufacturing productivity and growth. MAPP will deliver on the promise of advanced powder processing technologies through creation of new, connected, intelligent, cyber-physical manufacturing environments to achieve 'right first time' product manufacture. Achieving our vision and realising the potential of these technologies will enable us to meet our societal goals of reducing energy consumption, materials use, and CO2 emissions, and our economic goals of increasing productivity, rebalancing the UK's economy, and driving economic growth and wealth creation. We have developed a clear strategy with a collaborative and interdisciplinary research and innovation programme that focuses our collective efforts to deliver new understanding, actions and outcomes across the following themes: 1) Particulate science and innovation. Powders will become active and designed rather than passive elements in their processing. Control of surface state, surface chemistry, structure, bulk chemistry, morphologies and size will result in particles designed for process efficiency / reliability and product performance. Surface control will enable us to protect particles out of process and activate them within. Understanding the influence between particle attributes and processing will widen the limited palette of materials for both current and future manufacturing platforms. 2) Integrated process monitoring, modelling and control technologies. New approaches to powder processing will allow us to handle the inherent variability of particulates and their stochastic behaviours. Insights from advanced in-situ characterisation will enable the development of new monitoring technologies that assure quality, and coupled to modelling approaches allow optimisation and control. Data streaming and processing for adaptive and predictive real-time control will be integral in future manufacturing platforms increasing productivity and confidence. 3) Sustainable and future manufacturing technologies. Our approach will deliver certainty and integrity with final products at net or near net shape with reduced scrap, lower energy use, and lower CO2 emissions. Recoupling the materials science with the manufacturing science will allow us to realise the potential of current technologies and develop new home-grown manufacturing processes, to secure the prosperity of UK industry. MAPP's focused and collaborative research agenda covers emerging powder based manufacturing technologies: spark plasma sintering (SPS), freeze casting, inkjet printing, layer-by-layer manufacture, hot isostatic pressing (HIP), and laser, electron beam, and indirect additive manufacturing (AM). MAPP covers a wide range of engineering materials where powder processing has the clear potential to drive disruptive growth - including advanced ceramics, polymers, metals, with our initial applications in aerospace and energy sectors - but where common problems must be addressed.

REFORM (pRinted Electronics FOR the circular econoMy) sets out to address the environmental and sustainability challenges around conventional surface mounted and embedded functional electronics. The project aims to accelerate and guide the development of a new European green functional electronics supply chain. It seeks to use ecodesign principles to ensure that functional electronics can be produced that meet multiple application requirements for technological performance and compliance, while also meeting societal and environmental needs for sustainability. To achieve this, REFORM will develop environmentally benign electronic ‘building blocks’ focusing on green, bio-derived adhesives, conductive inks and flexible substrates. These will be integrated into industry-led functional electronics systems and supported by innovations in conformance testing and material recovery methods. Taking a holistic approach to development across the supply chain positions, this project is unique in not only achieving a step-change in technology compatible with industrial reality, but also producing prototype showcase systems with direct future impact on sustainability. REFORM brings together a world-leading consortium of academics, non-profit RTOs, industrial associations, private SME partners and large firms from eight countries across Europe. The project is female-led and coordinated by CIDETEC, a specialist RTO in surface engineering and energy storage based in Spain with a strong track record of leading large collaborative European projects. By combining the consortium’s unique and complementary expertise, REFORM aims to give Europe an innovation lead in green functional electronics, enhancing European competitiveness, and helping meet the ambitions for the European Green Deal. The immediate outcome of REFORM will be three demonstrators: a green smart logistics tag, a green embedded wireless sensor and a microsupercapacitor, taking the project from TRL 2/3 to TRL 5.

We are all familiar with the concept of travel, and visiting York from Glasgow is conceptually a trial matter. When we reflect on this process, however, there are lots of potential questions we might ask about the mode of transport, the route and the potential to get lost. A similar range of questions could be asked about chemical reactions. We select starting materials and seek to transform them into products. The route we choose is equally complex. Now, however, the participants are much smaller and very special methods are needed to view them. Furthermore, with an optimal solution we get the most product from the least starting material using the least amount of energy and other resources as possible. If think of a reaction that is undertaken on the 1,000,000 tonne scale it is also clearly vital to minimise waste. In Chemistry, there is a very special and often expensive method called nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) that allows us to take pictures of the participants as they travel from starting materials to products. This methods is normally very insensitive and hence very expensive large magnets are required. If we want to use this technology to deliver clean and efficient chemistry on an industrial scale we need to find a way to work with smaller lower cost magnets, ideally using the Earth's magnetic field. In this project we aim to develop a new method using such low-magnetic field NMR devices to follow the route taken by molecules during their conversion into high value products in both laboratory and industrial settings. We will use a special form of hydrogen gas, known as parahydrogen to increase the sensitivity of the NMR measurement to a level that will allow to achieve this goal. Parahydrogen was actually the fuel of the space shuttle and one might view it here as acting like a molecular microscope whilst at the same time removing (filtering) any unwanted signals from spectators to the reaction of interest. We will build-up our understanding of the reactions route by taking our NMR pictures which contains precise information about the identity of the participants (molecules) at different times after the start of the reaction. This means that we will monitor the same process several times in order to produce the necessary molecular level picture that will ultimately allow us to optimise our chosen reaction. The enhanced level of information that will be provided by our new device will enable scientists and industrialists to develop and optimise reactions in a way that was previously impossible and hence contribute more positively to society.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.