Steel is the most used material in the world by value, one of the most recyclable materials and the only metal produced and consumed in volume in the UK. It is a foundation industry underpinning the economy, e.g. Tata Steel provides the most material for Nissan Leaf's lightweight body and in construction the UK is set to lead the growth rate at 2.8% (cf. EU average of 1.8%). However, the UK steel industry currently faces high energy and raw materials costs with some inefficient processes that are unable to produce advanced products. A strong research base is essential to support the UK steel industry, users of steel and steel-hybrid materials and to develop the skilled workforce needed to drive innovation. There is strong industrial need from the UK transportation and yellow goods industry for material innovation leading to lightweighting, superior performance and establishment of a UK supply chain for auto-bodies, transmissions, battery casings etc; and from the UK construction sector where half of construction demand will be in the residential sector by 2030. There is massive potential for novel steel-based solutions such as hybrid materials, which require detailed understanding and control of the steel surface properties during processing. To reduce lead-times for alloy innovation, and to ensure new alloys can be processed, rapid alloy design and high-throughput processing is required. Whilst combinatorial approaches for identifying an alloy for desired properties are available, the ability to rapidly simulate all the transient process steps critical for actual alloy manufacturing and its integration into structures and devices does not exist. Therefore a suite of new equipment is proposed that will identify and accelerate inventions for synthesizing alloys encompassing rapid processing, characterisation and modelling. The equipment will comprise a high throughput 3D ingot printer, drop furnace to assess liquid-environment reactions for solidification optimization, surface/bulk deformation rig to assess solid-environment reactions for hot process optimization, high throughput rolling to produce appropriate microstructures for subsequent testing, PVD deposition to enable co-development of compatible coatings and electro-thermal-mechanical testing for coating, welding and forming assessment. We will access existing characterisation (SEM and Raman/AFM) facilities off line to enable detailed assessment of bulk and surface structure of down selected systems. Alongside this will be modelling software for bridging the gaps from laboratory high-throughput experiments to manufacturing processes. The equipment requested was identified following extensive engagement and discussions with industrial partners, particularly Tata Steel who have made very significant commitments, and the Tata Steel network of supported UK academics. The facility will be managed by a dedicated test facilities engineer with a booking system for access for individual equipment items and as a through process assessment tool for new alloy systems. A Steering Group and Industrial Advisory Group will meet regularly to ensure that high quality scientific projects are prioritized, industrial use is encouraged and fair access is maintained. WMG has extensive experience of providing equipment support and user training and have strong links with industry through the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, co-location of the Tata Steel UK R&D centre and the new National Automotive Innovation Centre. Ongoing EPSRC projects have been identified that will immediately benefit from the facility with new research areas being developed in collaboration with industry and other academics. We feel that the development of this facility will be a critical element in developing an environment where the essential technologies needed for transforming the UK steel industry can be invented and implemented utilizing energy and raw material flexible processes and develop high value products

Ultrasonic cavitation and streaming are widely used in the chemical, food, oil, drag and paint processing industries. The generation of cavitation bubbles though ultrasound (US) is a powerful technique that induces physico-mechanical and physico-chemical effects in multiphase systems contained in liquid media. When imploding, cavitation bubbles produce high-speed liquid jets (300-1000 m/s) accompanied by high pressure (100-1000 MPa) and local temperature spikes (up to 10000 K). Pulsating bubbles impose high-frequency pressure pulses of several MPa in magnitude. These basic phenomena are involved in specific and in many cases poorly understood mechanisms that are used as a working tool, for instance, for manufacturing two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials, and exploited for various other applications in industry. Two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials, such as graphene, MoS2, WS2, h-BN, h-BCN, and other layered materials are being heralded as unique materials that may help overcome current and future societal challenges related to energy generation, thermal management, and storage and in the healthcare sectors. Despite intense research, the successful exploitation and integration of 2D materials in next generation technologies where faster, thinner, and stronger devices are needed is still hampered by the issues associated with the scalability, reproducibility, and sustainability of current manufacturing techniques, aimed at generating uniform and high-quality 2D materials. For example, most current production processes of 2D materials are limited to batch-processing and require large quantities of harmful solvents and surfactants for the shearing or ultrasonication to work, bearing the risk of causing much harm to the environment, whilst the resulting structures are often limited in size and to few layer 2D materials with monolayers only at the edges of the exfoliated structures. Here, we propose to overturn the current exfoliation technological paradigm by giving the ultrasound-induced mechanisms the leading role in the exfoliation of layered materials. The scientific novelty lies in establishing the precise mechanisms of ultrasonic exfoliation through advanced and bespoke in situ synchrotron X-ray ultrahigh speed imaging techniques (up to million frames per second), small-angle neutron scattering, precise acoustic measurements, advanced ex situ characterisation, and multi-scale modelling methods. The technological step-change advance lies in developing a scalable and environmentally friendly process with focus on using water as the liquid medium (minimising the amount of special, expensive, and harmful additives), and reducing the processing time from tens of hours to minutes whilst increasing yield and size of the 2D sheets. The processing part of the project will concentrate on the development of an innovative reactor, controlled ultrasonication, optimisation of processing parameters, and the selection of suitable eco-friendly additives in order to achieve the most efficient exfoliation and dispersion in terms of the lateral size, shape, quality, flake thickness, and yield of the nanosheets. The properties of these 2D functional materials will be tested and benchmarked against commercially available 2D materials and employed in batteries and thermal management applications.

Steel continues to be the most used material in the world by value and play an essential role in all aspects of society, from construction to transport, energy generation to food production. The UK steel industry is undergoing significant changes with changes in ownership. The long-term sustainability of UK steel making requires lower energy production and the development of high value steel products. Energy constitutes a significant portion of the cost of steel production, between 20% to 40% and, whilst the amount of energy required to produce a tonne of steel has reduced by 50% in the past 30 years through changes in steel making technologies, further improvements are necessary. Heating and reheating steel is responsible for significant energy consumption in the steel supply chain. Therefore the introduction of new processing routes to minimise or eliminate reheating stages will have a dramatic effect on energy use, and, if this is coupled with reduced hot deformation by casting to near net shape, further energy reductions can be realised. This project is concerned with establishing the process and chemistry windows for production of conventional and advanced high strength strip (AHSS) steel grades using belt casting technology. Belt casting is a near net shape casting process, producing strip that needs minimal hot deformation to achieve the required product thickness. It is a significantly lower energy production route compared to traditional continuous casting to large sections with subsequent hot rolling, for example energy consumption could be reduced by > 3 GJ/tonne steel produced (based on savings of approx. 2 GJ/tonne from reduced hot rolling and approx. 1.25 GJ/tonne from near net shape casting). In addition belt casting allows the production of AHSS steel grades that cannot currently be manufactured using conventional processing: TWIP (twinning induced plasticity) and TRIP (transformation induced plasticity) grades have high work hardening rates meaning they cannot be rolled in current hot rolling strip mills; and low density (high Al) steels have very large grain sizes (millimeters) that result in poor processability (e.g. hot tearing during continuous casting). These steels are extremely attractive commercially, given their vastly superior properties (TWIP and TRIP steels are 2x as strong, with 3x the ductility of conventional steels, and high Al steels have a combination of good strength and lower density), which can contribute to light weighting in the automotive and construction industries. During the ASSURE feasibility project facilities were established at WMG to allow simulation belt cast microstructures, including dynamic direct observation of the solidifying steel at different cooling rates. It was shown that the microstructures are altered by the higher cooling rate of belt casting, compared to conventional slab casting, and that further beneficial modifications (e.g. reduction in grain size in high Al steels) can be achieved by composition control. In this project (ASSURE2), quantitative relationships between composition, process parameters and microstructure (and hence final product properties) will be established, taking into account the higher cooling rates of belt casting and the reduced hot deformation after casting to final thickness compared to conventional processing. Novel new concepts, such as atmospheric control for composition modification and / or solidification temperature reduction and electromagnetic fields for microstructure refinement will also be considered. The collaboration with Professor Guthrie at McGill University in Canada, the leading expert on belt casting technology and computational modelling of liquid metal processes, will provide significant added value to the scientific studies, with the subcontract to use their pilot plant facilities, at MetSim, allowing us to consider the scale up from laboratory scientific studies to industrially relevant processing.

Individual Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are as conductive as copper, they can carry more current and have ~7 times smaller density. They also perform better at high frequency, because they have a significantly-reduced skin effect, where the higher the frequency, the thinner the layer at the surface that can carry the current is, leading to increased resistance. Mechanically, CNTs are more stable as electrical conductors, as they do not suffer from creep, a phenomenon where metals deform, in time, under stress and which leads to electrical failures in wires and printed circuit boards. An electrical CNT wire that is as conductive as an aluminium or copper one will be lighter, tougher, able to carry more current and perform better at higher frequencies. Lift a power drill or a vacuum cleaner and imagine that their weight is cut in half, without losing power. The problem when going to a large scale is how to pass the current between individual nanotubes. The structure of graphite is that of individual sheets of sp2-bonded carbon, held together by weak van der Waals forces in directions perpendicular to the individual sheets; these weak forces are the reason why these planes slip across each other and the graphite lead in the pencil works. Conductivity in the plane is very high, but out of plane is much smaller; this means that if we put two nanotubes together, the electrons find a barrier between the nanotubes that they must tunnel through, reducing the conductivity. What we propose to do is to effectively weld nanotubes, by introducing defects in the nanotubes in a controlled way and then healing them together, such that the defects migrate and cancel each other between the tubes, leading to cross-linking of the CNTs in the area of contact. Therefore, our challenge is to discover a manufacturing solution for CNT wires and cables, and we are best placed to do this because we start from our proven method for getting CNTs aligned by electrospinning and we have the right expertise in the management of defects in materials, from introduction/implantation to self-healing.

One third of the world's energy is used in industry to make products - the buildings, infrastructure, vehicles, capital equipment and household goods that sustain our lifestyles. Most of this energy is needed in the early stages of production to convert raw materials, such as iron ore or trees, into stock materials like steel plates or reels of paper and because these materials are sold cheaply, but use a lot of energy, they are already extremely energy efficient. Therefore, the key materials with which we create modern lifestyles - steel, cement, plastic, paper and aluminium in particular - are the main 'carriers' of industrial energy, and if we want to make a big reduction in industrial energy use, we need to reduce our demand for these materials. In the UK, our recent history has led to closure of much of our capacity to make these materials, and although this has led to reductions in emissions occurring on UK territory, in reality our consumption of materials has grown, and the world's use of energy and emission of greenhouse gases has risen as our needs are met through imports. The proposed UK INDEMAND Centre therefore aims to enable delivery of significant reductions in the use of both energy and energy-intensive materials in the Industries that supply the UK's physical needs. To achieve this, we need to understand the operation and performance of the whole material and energy system of UK industry; we need to understand better our patterns of consumption both in households, and in government and industry purchasing, particularly related to replacement decisions; we need to look for opportunities to innovate in products, processes and business models to use less material while serving the same need; and we need to identify the policy, business and consumer triggers that would lead to significant change while supporting UK prosperity. The proposer team have already developed broad-ranging work aiming to address this need, in close collaboration with industry and government partners: at Cambridge, the WellMet2050 project has opened the door to recognising Material Efficiency as a strategy for saving energy and reducing emissions, and established a clear trajectory for business growth with reduced total material demand; in Bath, work on embodied energy and emissions has created a widely adopted database of materials, and the Transitions and Pathways project has established a clear set of policy opportunities for low carbon technologies that we can now apply to demand reduction; work on energy and emissions embodied in trade at Leeds has shown how UK emissions and energy demand in industry have declined largely due to a shift of production elsewhere, while the true energy requirements of our consumption have grown; work on sustainable consumption at Nottingham Trent has shown how much of our purchased material is discarded long before it is degraded, looked at how individuals define their identity through consumption, and begun to tease out possible interventions to influence these wasteful patterns of consumption. The proposal comes with over £5m of committed gearing, including cash support for at least 30 PhD students to work with the Centre and connect its work to the specific interests of consortium partners. The proposal is also strongly supported by four key government departments, the Committee on Climate Change, and a wide network of smaller organisations whose interests overlap with the proposed Centre, and who wish to collaborate to ensure rich engagement in policy and delivery processes. Mechanisms, including a Fellows programme for staff exchange in the UK and an International Visiting Fellows programme for global academic leaders, have been designed to ensure that the activities of the Centre are highly connected to the widest possible range of activities in the UK and internationally which share the motivation to deliver reductions in end-use energy demand in Industry.