The goal of the proposed EngD Centre is to produce research leaders to tackle the major national and international challenges over the next 15 years in implementing new power plant to generate electricity more efficiently using fossil energy with near zero emissions, involving the successful demonstration of CO2 capture, and also in reducing CO2 emissions generally from coal utilisation, including iron making. These leaders will be part of the new breed of engineers that will be thoroughly versed in cutting edge energy research and capable of operating in multi-disciplinary teams, covering a range of knowledge transfer, deployment and policy roles and with the skills to analyse the overall economic context of their projects and to be aware of the social and ethical implications. This proposal has involved wide consultation with the power generation sector which has indicated that the number of doctoral researchers required in the UK for the major developments in large-scale fossil energy power generation involving efficiency improvements and CO2 capture can be estimated conservatively as 150-200 over the next ten years. The Centre will play a vital role in meeting this demand by providing training in highly relevant technological areas to the companies concerned, as well as the broader portfolio of skills required for future research leaders. Further, Doosan Babcock, Alstom, E.ON, Rolls Royce, EDF, RWE, Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), Welsh Power and Drax Power all support this bid and are willing to participate in the proposed Centre from 2009 onwards. Further, in terms of reducing CO2 emissions generally from coal utilisation, including iron making and smokeless fuel, this has drawn in other industrial partners, Corus and CPL. The innovative training programme involves a number of unique elements based around the social sciences and activities with China and is designed to ensure that the research engineers are not only thoroughly versed in cutting edge energy research but capable of operating in multi-disciplinary teams covering a range of knowledge transfer, deployment and policy roles and the ability to analyse the overall economic context of projects and to be aware of the social and ethical implications. The academic team draws upon the internationally leading fossil energy programme at Nottingham but also on colleagues at Birmingham and Loughborough for their complementary research in high temperature materials, plant life monitoring and energy economics. Given that virtually all of the research projects will benefit from using pilot-scale equipment in industry linked to the advanced analytical capabilities in the MEC and our overseas partners, together with the Group activities undertaken by the yearly cohorts, the training programme is considered to offer considerable added value over DTA project and CASE awards, as testified by the extremely high level of industrial interest in the proposed Centre across the power generation section, together with other industries involved in reducing CO2 emissions from coal utilisation.

We plan to create a world-leading, multidisciplinary, UK Structural Ceramics Centre to underpin research and development of these highly complex materials. Structural ceramics are surprisingly ubiquitous not only in obvious traditional applications (whitewares, gypsum plaster, house bricks, furnace refractories, dental porcelains and hip/knee prostheses) but in hidden applications where their electrical behaviour is also important such as in computers, mobile phones, DVDs etc. Structural ceramics are enabling materials which underpin many key areas of the economy including: energy generation, environmental clean-up, aerospace and defence, transport and healthcare. Key areas where important developments can be made in energy generation include ceramics for plutonium immobilisation and for next generation nuclear reactor fuels, for ion conductors in solid oxide fuel cells, and for storage of hydrogen for the projected hydrogen economy. Porous ceramics need to be developed for heavy metal and radionuclide capturing filters to help with environmental remediation of soil, air and water and for storage of carbon captured from burning fossil fuels. The next generation of space shuttles and other military aircraft will rely on ceramic and composite thermal protection systems operating at over 2000C. Ceramic coatings on turbine blades in aircraft enable them to function at temperatures above the melting point of the metals alloys from which they are mostly made, and improved ceramics capable of operation at even higher temperatures will confer improved fuel efficiency with environmental benefits. Our troops need improved personal body & vehicle armour to operate safely in troubled areas and the latest generation of armour materials will use ceramic laminate systems but improvements always need to be made in this field. Ceramic are used increasingly for bone and tooth replacement with the latest materials having the ability to allow natural bone ingrowth and with mechanical properties close to natural bone. It is clear the improved understanding of the mechanical behaviour of ceramics, better and simpler processing and the ability to model structure-processing-property relations over many length scales will lead to significant benefit not just to the UK but to mankind. Our aim is to combine the capabilities of two internationally-leading Departments at Imperial College London (Materials and Mechanical Engineering) to form the Centre of Excellence. The Centre will act as a focal point for UK research on structural ceramics but will encourage industrial and university partners to participate in UK and international R&D programmes. 51 companies and universities have already expressed the wish to be involved with promised in-kind support at over 900K. Research activities will be developed in three key areas: -Measurement of mechanical properties and their evolution in extreme environments such as high temperatures, demanding chemical environments, severe wear and impact conditions and combinations of these.-High Temperature Processing and Fabrication. In particular, there is a need for novel approaches for materials which are difficult to process such as borides, carbides, nitrides, materials with compositional gradients and ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). -Modelling of the time-dependence of deformation and fracture of ceramics to predict the useful lifetime of components. The modelling techniques will vary from treating the material as a homogeneous block down to describing the atomic nature of the materials and links between these approaches will be established.In addition to providing the funding that will enable us to create the nucleus from which the centre can grow, mutually beneficial relations with industry, universities and research centres in the UK and abroad will be developed to ensure that a large group of researchers will remain active long after the period for which funding is sought will have ended.