Polymeric web materials are ubiquitous in today's society, with demand set to increase in areas as diverse as plastic electronics and biodegradable or compostable packaging. However, the need for greener technologies, reduced energy usage and lower material usage is clearly at the forefront of all future global manufacturing requirements, and any new products must meet these criteria. Key to determining the properties and performance of a polymer are its surface functionalities. For applications such as packaging, these can include the ability to prevent moisture and air ingress spoiling the products (i.e. barrier properties) or the ease with which labelling information can be printed onto the packaging (printability). These surface functionalities are now being modified through atmospheric pressure plasma processing in a number of industries, particularly using a family of discharges known as dielectric barrier discharges DBD's. In simple terms DBD's consist of a pair of parallel plates separated by a small gap, with at least one plate covered with a dielectric material. The replacement of conventional polymer web processing methods (such as vacuum-based technologies) with DBD plasma processing provides opportunities cleaner, more efficient processing and points the way ahead for many applications. The DBD geometry is ideally suited to web processing and clearly has the potential to make a major impact in this field. For example, polypropylene film coated by DBD technology could replace the current chlorinated polymer products for food packaging. These materials provide a transparent barrier layer, but the use of chlorinated polymers is under pressure from environmental legislation and alternatives are now required. In industry it is important that any web processing is performed uniformly across the polymer without detrimental damage to the surface. This would ideally require a homogenous discharge. However, dielectric barrier discharges usually operate in a filamentary mode, often resulting in non-uniform and small scale inhomogeneous treatment, and partial thermal degradation of the treated films. However, until very recently it has not proved possible to achieve reliable and controllable plasma discharges to deliver the desired surface functionalities over large areas. This is in part due to a lack of understanding of the fundamental processes of the discharge and their relationships to process stability and outcomes, which has limited large-scale system development. This proposal seeks to undertake a detailed investigation of the physics and chemistry of DBD's specifically designed to replicate key elements of an industrial scale reel-to-reel atmospheric plasma processing system. We will concentrate on two polymer substrates; polypropylene and cellulose, which find a range of commercial applications. We will focus only on process gases and precursors likely to deliver specific surface functionalities e.g. printability, barrier, etc. Thus, we will study a series of 'model systems' on the laboratory scale. Key novel elements of these studies will be the first use of molecular beam mass spectrometry to probe the DBD systems in addition to new power supply designs, incorporating user defined pulsed waveforms. These measurements will be complemented, time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy OES and 2-D filtered optical imaging will be used to identify and map out the key emitting species (ionic and neutrals) in the bulk discharge. Combining the results from the surface chemistry and plasma composition studies we shall endeavour to produce a comprehensive picture of the surface chemical routes in this discharge and the interplay between the plasma state and the substrate during the process. The information gained on these 'model systems' will then be transferred to an existing 2m long reel-to-reel industrial scale processing system through reengineering design at our collaborators, Innovia Films Ltd.

My vision is to enable reliable large-scale manufacturing of novel advanced organic or hybrid organic/inorganic materials which have complex three-dimensional structure. An advanced material is one with new properties that allows companies to develop novel high-value products to meet market needs, and in doing so generate growth and high-technology exports. Cutting-edge manufacturing is key to wealth creation in the UK. The UK cannot compete in the low technology (commodity) materials sector: these are now manufactured in countries with low cost labour markets. To manufacture an advanced material, we have to understand its structure in detail. This means being able to observe and measure it over many length scales (nanometres to millimetres), and then use that information to understand its physical characteristics. Once we have understood how to create a material in the laboratory setting, the next challenge is to scale-up processing capability. Often the manufacturing process itself has a big impact on the microscopic structure of the material, and hence its physical properties. This leads to a development cycle. To maintain desirable properties, process variables are changed, informed by predictive modelling and re-examination of the microscopic structure. The aim is to identify process steps that critically impact on the product output capacity and reliability. This project will work directly with industrial partners to use novel ways of discern microscopic structure so as to inform the product development cycle. The industrial partners are both large UK firms with interests in the energy sector: one working on developing polymer components for energy storage; the other working on up scaling process technologies for new types of low cost solar cells. For both materials systems, application performance success hinges on complex hierarchical structures. Scientists and engineers have realised that is often not only the material itself, but the way different structural arrangements, each at a different scale, interact with one another. As well as studying materials of immediate commercial application, this project also aims to harvest the information contained in very similar natural materials which also have complex hierarchical structures (spider silk in particular). Prior development of this class of polymers has been hampered by the absence of measurement instruments and methods capable of accurately observing their composition and complex structure. I aim to refine a new type of electron microscopy that I have developed in order to measure, from the scale of nanometres to millimetres, soft-matter properties that define their electrical and structural performance. This will be tailored to the particular needs of my industrial collaborators, but the technique will also have much wider application. For example, I will also use my method to try to unlock the exact structural mechanisms that are found in the natural material silk - which has extraordinary properties as yet it is not understood how to retain these in the man-made equivalent. With the support of a visiting civil engineering expert who has developed scalable mechanical models for complex hierarchical structures, I aim to build a scalable model that will help to predict the link between process parameter variation and resulting materials properties. This will be informed using my new characterisation method. Finally, in the light of the results from the research, I hope to pool the knowledge gained from both the industrial and academic partners to formulate a more general understanding of the development cycle for these technologically and economically important class of materials.

Polymers, because of their properties and ease of processing into complex shapes are among the most important materials available to us today and the polymer industry makes a major contribution to the UK economy (18 billion per year). An exciting new family of materials are polymer nanocomposites (NCs), in which particles with nanoscale dimensions are dispersed in the polymer. The benefits of NCs derive primarily from the exceptionally large amounts of particle surface area that can be achieved for a small addition of particles (e.g. 5% by weight). Thus they offer dramatic improvement in material performance with significant increases in mechanical and gas barrier properties. The user of such a material therefore gets a more effective product (or one containing less material for the same effectiveness). It is well recognised that the nanoparticle-polymer interface/chemistry is a critical parameter in determining the degree of dispersion of particles in a nanocomposite and that the interfacial properties have a significant influence on nanocomposite performance. In recent times, however it has become apparent that the processing route by which the nanoparticle-polymer mixture is formed into a final product is an equally important aspect of NC manufacture and this is the area on which we will focus in this proposal.The principal aim of the proposed project is therefore to achieve a fundamental understanding of the interactions between material formulation, processing and properties of polymer nanocomposites and to apply this to the development of proof of concept applications which provide generic processing information for industry and academia alike. The work will include statistically designed experimental studies using pilot scale polymer processing equipment and validation trials on industrial scale equipment. Parameters to be studied include extruder shear and temperature profiles, screw design, additives such as anti-oxidant, post extrusion deformation such as biaxial extension and cooling rates. We will characterise the materials in terms of structure, mechanical, thermal and barrier performance in order to link process to structure and structure to performance.We will utilise the combined processing, characterisation and analytical skills and facilities existing in Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and the University of Bradford (UoB), partners who have worked together successfully on large collaborative projects, in the past and currently, and have an excellent national and international track record in polymer processing research.

Polymers, because of their properties and ease of processing into complex shapes are among the most important materials available to us today and the polymer industry makes a major contribution to the UK economy (18 billion per year). An exciting new family of materials are polymer nanocomposites (NCs), in which particles with nanoscale dimensions are dispersed in the polymer. The benefits of NCs derive primarily from the exceptionally large amounts of particle surface area that can be achieved for a small addition of particles (e.g. 5% by weight). Thus they offer dramatic improvement in material performance with significant increases in mechanical and gas barrier properties. The user of such a material therefore gets a more effective product (or one containing less material for the same effectiveness). It is well recognised that the nanoparticle-polymer interface/chemistry is a critical parameter in determining the degree of dispersion of particles in a nanocomposite and that the interfacial properties have a significant influence on nanocomposite performance. In recent times, however it has become apparent that the processing route by which the nanoparticle-polymer mixture is formed into a final product is an equally important aspect of NC manufacture and this is the area on which we will focus in this proposal.The principal aim of the proposed project is therefore to achieve a fundamental understanding of the interactions between material formulation, processing and properties of polymer nanocomposites and to apply this to the development of proof of concept applications which provide generic processing information for industry and academia alike. The work will include statistically designed experimental studies using pilot scale polymer processing equipment and validation trials on industrial scale equipment. Parameters to be studied include extruder shear and temperature profiles, screw design, additives such as anti-oxidant, post extrusion deformation such as biaxial extension and cooling rates. We will characterise the materials in terms of structure, mechanical, thermal and barrier performance in order to link process to structure and structure to performance.We will utilise the combined processing, characterisation and analytical skills and facilities existing in Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and the University of Bradford (UoB), partners who have worked together successfully on large collaborative projects, in the past and currently, and have an excellent national and international track record in polymer processing research.

In the UK there are more than four billion square metres of roofs and facades forming the building envelope. Most of this could potentially be used for harvesting solar energy and yet it covers less than 1.8 % of the UK land area. The shared vision for SPECIFIC is develop affordable large area solar collectors which can replace standard roofs and generate over one third of the UK's total target renewable energy by 2020 (10.8 GW peak and 19 TWh) reducing CO2 output by 6 million tonnes per year. This will be achieved with an annual production of 20 million m2 by 2020 equating to less than 0.5% of the available roof and wall area. SPECIFIC will realise this by quickly developing practical functional coated materials on metals and glass that can be manufactured by industry in large volumes to produce, store and release energy at point of use. These products will be suitable for fitting on both new and existing buildings which is important since 50% of the UKs current CO2 emissions come from the built environment.The key focus for SPECIFIC will be to accelerate the commercialisation of IP, knowledge and expertise held between the University partners (Swansea, ICL, Bath, Glyndwr, and Bangor) and UK based industry in three key areas of electricity generation from solar energy (photovoltaics), heat generation (solar thermal) and storage/controlled release. The combination of functionality will be achieved through applying functional coatings to metal and glass surfaces. Critical to this success is the active involvement in the Centre of the steel giant Corus/Tata and the glass manufacturer Pilkington. These two materials dominate the facings of the building stock and are surfaces which can be engineered. In addition major chemical companies (BASF and Akzo Nobel as two examples) and specialist suppliers to the emerging PV industry (e.g. Dyesol) are involved in the project giving it both academic depth and industrial relevance. To maximise open innovation colleagues from industry will be based SPECIFIC some permanently and some part time. SPECIFIC Technologists will also have secondments to partner University and Industry research and development facilities.SPECIFIC will combine three thriving research groups at Swansea with an equipment armoury of some 3.9m into one shared facility. SPECIFIC has also been supported with an equipment grant of 1.2 million from the Welsh Assembly Government. This will be used to build a dedicated modular roll to roll coating facility with a variety of coating and curing functions which can be used to scale up and trial successful technology at the pre-industrial scale. This facility will be run and operated by three experienced line technicians on secondment from industry. The modular coating line compliments equipment at Glyndwr for scaling up conducting oxide deposition, at CPi for barrier film development and at Pilkington for continuous application of materials to float glass giving the grouping unrivalled capability in functional coating. SPECIFIC is a unique business opportunity bridging a technology gap, delivering affordable novel macro-scale micro-generation, making a major contribution to UK renewable energy targets and creating a new export opportunity for off grid power in the developing world. It will ultimately generate thousands high technology jobs within a green manufacturing sector, creating a sustainable international centre of excellence in functional coatings where multi-sector applications are developed for next generation manufacturing.