The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem of plastics in the environment, impacting on waste management across the UK, EU and globally. We have seen increased demand for single use plastics for public health purposes, disruptions to the usual distribution pathways and variations in reuse, recycle and retention which are all vital to developing a circular economy. As countries begin to ease lockdown restrictions it is likely that citizens will face greater pressures in managing their waste with potentially more home based working, less travel and socialising and increased single use plastic packaging (e.g. medical equipment, customer avoidance of 'loose' retail products). An explosion of interest in the ongoing problem of plastic waste has seen a diverse range of solutions being proposed. Recently we completed the PRISM project (2015-18) with a number of industry leaders that has shown a real and sustainable proof of concept that promises to be a significant part of the solution to this problem. We will address the automatic sorting of waste plastic containers used in food and non-food grade applications as is partially done at waste recycling plants. Current automated near infra-red sorting techniques are unable to identify food grade from non-food grade packaging which consigns high value polymer resins into low grade; non food grade uses or worse still, landfill and incineration. We will enable a low cost labelling system suitable for commercialisation, to make this sorting a reality; support the long term viability for closed loop sorting of these materials (PP, PE, PET, e.g. plastic milk bottles, drinks containers to household detergent bottles). Previously our consortium demonstrated a labelling system that can be used for high speed sorting of various crushed plastic bottles at high belt speeds with high purity and high yield which has received a great deal of interest from global brands. To commercialise this proof of concept it is desirable to optimise the luminescent materials that will be taken forwards so we will develop a sustainable low cost luminescent marker system using low toxicity and environmentally safe materials, thus lowering any commercial barrier to enter the market. Once this technology is proven then we will be in a strong position to seek wide implementation of our technology and run full scale field trials with major brand owners facilitated through our NextlooPP partner. This transformative project will have the effect to reduce inappropriate plastics disposal and increase recycling rates by increasing the monetary value of the recycled material. This will address the Plastics Pacts objective of 30% recycled content by finalising the underpinning luminescent labelling technology to be implemented. Implementation of this technology into the NextlooPP process will facilitate the availability of rPP granules for food, cosmetics and lower grade applications thus reducing the demand for virgin polymer. Tackling the systemic problem of plastic waste effectively cannot be achieved through purely technical means and our research offers fresh insights into people's perspectives on recycling and how consumers (UK, Spain, Germany) engage with surface markers on plastic packaging in their households, a neglected but important site for managing waste. This project thus moves beyond the technical infrastructure of waste management and design of products to address people's perceptions and behaviour with plastic packaging in their every day life and how their perceptions and behaviour might have changed in light of COVID-19. This ambitious project will thus help position the UK at the forefront of innovation in sorting hard to recycle plastics and offers fresh insights by integrating technical, business, policy and consumer focused elements to ensure that we are in alignment with stake holders all across the plastic packaging supply chain.

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.

EPSRC have a delivery plan to align their portfolio to areas of UK strengths and national importance and have designated a number of 'Grow' areas. This application addresses two of these areas: 'RF and microwave communications' and 'RF and microwave devices', specifically matching the terahertz technology aspect of the latter. Why has EPSRC highlighted these areas? The answer is that society is evolving with a continuously increasing demand for the exchange of digital information. There is an expectation that everyone will be permanently connected to the Internet, no matter where they are. People are expecting that more information of a higher quality is delivered immediately: therefore newer services are requiring higher and higher data volumes and transfer rates. On demand video is an excellent example, with in-home delivery with standard definition now common place and demonstrations of new 4k on demand video now taking place. The data rates expected for these services are vast and the infrastructure needs adapt to cope. One way to achieve this is to move to higher frequencies for wireless links. We propose to demonstrate new building block components for such a communications system, designing and building these on an entirely new basis. A frequency of 300 GHz is chosen as it is at the cusp of technology; systems are now being deployed at frequencies below about 100 GHz where as systems approaching 1000 GHz are some years away because of the lack of active circuits. The components will also be applicable in radar and sensing scenarios. Once the individual components have been demonstrated, a full communications system will be designed, built and tested. There are very few demonstrations of communication systems at 300 GHz and the unique design methodology will provide a world-class demonstration. Three groups are collaborating in this project: the Fraunhofer Institute in Freiburg, Germany (IAF), and it the UK the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) and Birmingham University. All partners have substantial design and measurement capabilities at these very high frequencies. IAF are world leaders in the production of submillimetre wave integrated circuits and will be supplying transistors for the amplifiers. RAL will deliver world class Schottky barrier and the University of Birmingham has advanced micromachining capabilities. At Birmingham a new interconnect principle has been developed to link the Schottky diodes and transistors. Instead of using wires and their analogues, hollow waveguide tube based resonant cavities will be used. Currently 300 GHz components are mounting in conventionally milled gold pated blocks. The required waveguide dimensions are about 0.8 mm by 0.4 mm. Although conventional milling machines can machine this, once internal structures for resonators are required, milling becomes difficult or impossible. A technology that can be used for the waveguide cavities, and for smaller resonators at higher frequencies, is micromachining. Birmingham University have demonstrated micromachined waveguides, filters, diplexers and antennas at and above 300 GHz. This technology is now ready for the next step, which is the inclusion of active and non-linear devices. The micromachining work at Birmingham has been done by a number of techniques, the primarily technique is by etching an ultraviolet sensitive photoresist called SU8. This allows a pattern to be defined photolithographically by a mask and then etching sections produces the waveguide. The final structure is made by bonding a number of SU8 etched layers together and then metal coating them. The performance of the SU8 waveguides has been shown to be as good as metal. Other techniques for micromachining circuits will be investigated in order to find the optimum solution.

Oil is the most important source of energy worldwide, accounting for 35% of primary energy consumption and the majority of chemical feedstocks. The quest for sustainable resources to meet demands of a constantly rising global population is one of the main challenges for mankind this century. To be truly viable such alternative feedstocks must be sustainable, that is "have the ability to meet 21st century energy needs without compromising those of future generations." Development of efficient routes to large-scale chemical intermediates and commodity chemicals from renewable feedstocks is essential to have a major impact on the economic and environmental sustainability of the chemical industry. While fine chemical and pharmaceutical processes have a diverse chemistry and a need to find green alternatives, the large scale production of petrochemical derived intermediates is surely a priority issue if improved overall sustainability in chemicals manufacture is to be achieved. For example, nylon accounts for 8.9% of all manmade fibre production globally and is currently sourced exclusively from petrochemicals. It is one of the largest scale chemical processes employed by the chemicals sector. Achieving a sustainable chemicals industry in the near future requires 'drop in' chemicals for direct replacement of crude oil feedstocks. The production of next-generation advanced materials from the sustainably-sourced intermediates is a second key challenge to be tackled if our reliance on petrochemicals is to end The project will develop new heterogeneously catalysed processes to convert cellulose derivatives to high value platform and commodity chemicals. We specifically target sustainable production of intermediates for manufacture of polyamides and acrylates, thereby displacing petroleum feedstocks. Achieving the aims of the project requires novel multifunctional catalyst technology which optimises the acid-base properties, hydrogen transfer and deoxygenation capability. Using insights into catalyst design gleaned from our previous work, a directed high-throughput (HT) catalyst synthesis and discovery programme will seek multifunctional catalyst formulations for key biomass transformations. Target formulations will be scaled up and dispersed onto porous architectures for study in lab-scale industrial-style reactors. We will also seek to exploit multi-phase processes to improve selectivity and yield. This will be combined with multi-scale systems analysis to help prioritise promising pathways, work closely with industry to benchmark novel processes against established ones, develop performance measures (e.g. life cycle analysis (LCA)) to set targets for catalytic processes and explore optimal integration strategies with existing industrial value chains. Trade-offs between optimising single product selectivity versus allowing multiple reaction schemes and using effective separation technology in a "multiproduct" process will be explored. The potential utilization of by-products as fuels, sources of hydrogen, or as chemical feeds, will be evaluated by utilizing data from parallel programmes.

Inspired by recent scientific breakthroughs in the area of transformation optics (TO) and metamaterials, QMUL in collaboration with its partners and UK industries have demonstrated several novel antenna solutions which potentially offer new composite flat lens antenna, surface wave and metasurface devices that could be embedded into the skin of vehicles without compromising aerodynamic performance, representing a major leap forward for future technologies related to the Internet of Things (IoT), CubeSat and Space Communications. The potential of the underlying design approaches have much wider applicability in arguably all technical challenges as addressed above. For example, we extended the TO technique to design novel beam steerable antennas . Instead of moving or tilting the feed/reflctor, we employ an alternative way to manipulate the reflected emission by varying the permittivity of dielectrics derived from TO. This method has the merits of maintaining a flat profile, being capable of beam-steering and frequeny agility. Combining with appropriate feed designs, the system can be effectively be used as either a single radiator or an array fulfilling massive MIMO functions. In a broad sense, dielectric substrates with spatially varying permittivity and/or permeability can be regarded as a "magic black box", whose properties are programmable according to required functional requirements. In the proposed ANIMATE project, we refer to this magic black box as "software defined materials", since they demonstrate far-reaching capabilities well beyond conventional antennas and arguably in all devices and systems that exploit electromagnetic spectra. To enable this step change, a suite of novel advanced materials must be studied and developed, especially, active materials and structures with low loss, high tunability but low DC power dissipation are desirable. In addition, a robust biasing network is needed so that material building blocks can be individually controlled. In spite of the longstanding quest and intensive research over the years, this subject area still remains insufficiently explored. With ongoing advances in modelling and manufacturing tools, it is now possible to revisit some fundamental limits imposed on conventional materials and antenna designs. The vision of ANIMATE is therefore to unlock contributions and expertise from multiple disciplines, to develop a core programme of research on software defined materials, which will enable dynamic control of electromagnetic waves for applications in sensing, communications and computation. The ultimate objective of ANIMATE is to remove the traditional boundary between the designs of antennas and RF/microwave electronics as well as materials and devices, so that a generic material platform can be developed that is programmable and flexible for multifunctional applications integrating communication, sensing and computation. Specifically, in this project, we will: 1. Establish a holistic approach of software-defined materials for communication, sensing and computation, by building novel integrated and adaptive antenna technologies. 2. Integrate wireless sensor networks into the design of computer interface and control units for tunable materials to demonstrate and validate the wholly new concept of "networked materials" at subwavelength scales. 3. Exploit challenging applications of proposed antenna and material technologies with our core industrial partners at all stages of development: prototyping, manufacturing, toolbox validation, platform integration and testing. 4. Research novel active and tunable materials and investigate fundamental limits of relevant materials to industrial challenges. 5. Develop simulation tools that span from materials, device and process modeling with intricate complexities that open up the design domain significantly and enable the production of optimal structures with improved performance.