Recent evidence of increasing accumulation of micro- and nanoplastics (MnP) in soils and groundwater raise severe concerns by agricultural and water industries, food manufacturers, regulators, environmental interest groups and citizens. Private and public sectors require detailed understanding of environmental and public health risks posed by MnP in soils and groundwater. The PlasticUnderground Doctoral Network creates supra-disciplinary intersectoral capacity for analysing the fate, transport and impacts of MnP in soils and groundwater to develop solutions for reducing their environmental and public health risks, supporting the EC's circular plastic economy strategy. The central aim of the PlasticUnderground Doctoral Network is to deliver international scientific excellence through a holistic supra-disciplinary and inter-sectoral research and training network on solutions to the emerging crisis of MnP pollution in subsurface ecosystems in soils and groundwater, integrating knowledge across traditional discipline boundaries to benefit the public and private sectors. The supra-disciplinary research programme includes unique training opportunities for a cohort of 10 Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) (plus one individually funded through ETHZ as Associated Country partner) in environmental and social science, ecotoxicology, soil science and aquatic ecology, analytical chemistry, agronomy, data science and numerical modelling as well as responsible innovation, method standardization for use in regulatory decision making and risk assessment. The integrated training programme will prepare ESRs with skill sets that are urgently required in agricultural, water, chemical, and manufacturing industries, environmental and regulatory agencies, academia, and the public sector and includes training provision by key stakeholders that will directly benefit from the training in this network.

Unpaired electrons play vital roles in e.g. respiration and photosynthesis, are associated with human diseases including cancer and Alzheimer's disease and are at the basis of the modern computer and many industrially used catalysts. We propose to set up a new research facility at Imperial College London which employs a powerful technique called ulse Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, to identify and characterise such unpaired electrons (free radicals) and gain detailed insight into the structure and dynamics of paramagnetic compounds. The facility (PEPR) will therefore contribute to solving grand, societal challenges such as healthy aging, sustainable energy generation and storage, greener and more effective catalytic solutions for chemical manufacturing and developing a new generation of electronic devices. PEPR will encompass state-of-the-art pulse EPR instrumentation and in partnership with University College London we will develop new instrumentation and methodology to push the boundaries of what is possible with EPR today and widen the applications of this already extremely versatile technique. We will do this by combining EPR spectroscopy with electrochemistry, a powerful method for investigating oxidation-reduction processes that often lie at the heart of systems with unpaired electrons and by enabling pulse EPR investigations of paramagnetic compounds that cannot be accumulated in sufficiently large quantities to be studied with current commercially-available instrumentation. PEPR will therefore bring new capabilities to the UK, build on the existing research strengths and infrastructure at Imperial College and engage new academic users and research centres across London, regionally and UK-wide. The research facilitated by PEPR will have an immediate impact on UK science, with academic beneficiaries in a diverse range of research disciplines, and a significant people-pipeline through the many affiliated PhD students and PDRAs. Moreover, the facility's location at Imperial College's newly-established and growing innovation campus at White City provides a unique opportunity to encourage academia and industry to collaborate more closely on common, global challenges. Access to the wider community will be provided through outreach events such as the Great Exhibition Road Festival and the Imperial Lates, as well as by including the facility into the tours that are already taking place regularly in the Molecular Sciences Research Hub where PEPR will be located.

The amount of plastic litter in in the environment is growing rapidly. Its presence poses a severe threat to marine and freshwater life. However, at the heart of our knowledge of plastic litter lies a black hole. The location of 99% or more of the plastic litter thought to be in the ocean is unknown. This makes it difficult to propose effective solutions for the problems associated with plastic litter. The main goal of this project is to predict what happens to different types of plastic litter in the environment. To achieve this, the degradation of commonly used plastics will be monitored under controlled laboratory conditions. Experimental methods to produce tiny fragments of plastics made from different polymers will be developed. These will be used to simulate their behaviour in the environment. For example, how quickly they fragment and sink under different conditions and how easily they transfer from water to river sediments. For comparison, plastics which are thought to degrade in a more environmentally-sustainable fashion will also be monitored. Results from these tests will be used to predict the fate of different types of plastics in the environment. They will also allow an assessment of the contribution that promoting sustainable types of plastics can make to solving the problem of plastic litter in the environment.

The materials design space is too large to be explored empirically. While experimental work can be directed by computational modeling to make this challenge more tenable, the number of tests/syntheses may still be too large on an experimental time-scale. The goal of this project is to combine computational tools (e.g. molecular modelling, process modelling, computer-aided design) and automated HT synthesis and screening platforms to drive and accelerate the discovery and optimisation of new materials. Specifically, ATLAS (Automated high-Throughput pLatform Suite) will comprise three robotic stations dedicated to the synthesis (two platforms) and screening (one platform) of materials. It will be located at Imperial College South Kensington Campus and be paired with materials characterisation equipment able to handle many samples owing to dedicated auto-sampling stations. By executing data-rich experiments, ATLAS will increase the pace of innovation, while enhancing reproducibility. The research enabled by ATLAS will initially target challenges related to the discovery and optimisation of new medicines, sustainable polymers and clean energy materials.

Chemistry is a key underpinning science for solving many global problems. The ability to make any molecule or material, in any quantity needed in a prescribed timescale, and in a sustainable way, is important for the discovery and supply of new medicines to cure diseases, agrochemicals for better crop yields/protection, as well as new electronic and smart materials to improve our daily lives. Traditionally, synthetic chemistry is performed manually in conventional glassware. This approach is becoming increasingly inadequate to keep pace with the demand for greater accuracy and reproducibility of reactions, needed to support further discovery and development, including scaling up processes for manufacturing. The future of synthetic chemistry will require the wider adoption of automated (or autonomous) reaction platforms to perform reactions, with full capture of reaction conditions and outcomes. The data generated will be valuable for the development of better reactions and better predictive tools that will facilitate faster translation to industrial applications. The chemical and pharmaceutical industry is a significant provider of jobs and creator of wealth for the UK. Data from the Chemical Industries Association (CIA) shows that the chemical industry has a total turnover of £40B, adding £14.4B of value to the UK economy every year, employs 140,000 people directly, and supports a further 0.5M jobs. The sector is highly innovation-intensive: much of its annual spend of £4B on investment in capital and R&D is based on synthetic chemistry with many SME's and CRO's establishing novel markets in Science Parks across the UK regions, particularly in the South East and North West. The demand for graduate recruits by the Chemicals and Pharmaceutical industries for the period 2015-2025 is projected to be between 50,000-77,000, driven by an aging workforce creating significant volumes of replacement jobs, augmented by the need to address skills shortages in key enabling technologies, particularly automation and data skills. This CDT will provide a new generation of molecular scientists that are conversant with the practical skills, associated data science and digital technology to acquire, analyse and utilise large data sets in their daily work. This will be achieved by incorporating cross-disciplinary skills from engineering, as well as computing, statistics, and informatics into chemistry graduate programs, which are largely lacking from existing doctoral training in synthetic chemistry. Capitalising upon significant strategic infrastructural and capital investment on cutting edge technology at Imperial College London made in recent years, this CDT also attracts very significant inputs from industrial partners, as well as Centres of Excellence in the US and Europe, to deliver a unique multi-faceted training programme to improve the skills, employability and productivity of the graduates for future academic and industrial roles.