Measuring water parameters is required in many industries and in environmental science. The most widely measured and required parameters are temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen. These measurements are used in multiple applications such as weather forcasting, climate modelling, water quality assessment, sewage processing and aquaculture. In many cases a high precision measurement and continuous data is required. Commercial sensors with high performance have delivered this data and have enabled dramatic advances in these fields. However, they are expensive (~$10000) and large preventing widespread use in high density data collection systems. Smaller and cheaper ($500) sensors are available, but currently are not sufficiently accurate or precise for many applications. The University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre have developed a unique ultra miniature high-precision salinity temperature and dissolved oxygen sensor for water analysis. These parameters are all measured on a small glass chip (8 x 10 mm) with patterned metal tracks to form the sensors. Salinity is calculated from a combination of temperature and conductivity measured with four micro electrodes in contact with the water. This chip is plugged into custom made electronics that operates the chip and stores the data and communicates with the outside world. The total sensor system is the size of a marker pen. The technology has significant market potential (estimated $420M at 2011 rates) and has received significant commercial interest. However, the current barrier to commercialisation is a technical problem with long term stability. This is only 0.016 C in three months, but many applications require only 0.001 C stability over 3 months. We have identified that the source of the problem as water uptake which causes swelling (1.6% by volume) of the polymer that we use to package and insulate the metal tracks. This swelling causes the chip and metal track sensors to bend or elongate over time causing the drift. This affects the temperature and conductivity measurement and hence the salinity accuracy. The solution is to replace the polymer insulator with a hard and water resistant material such as Silicon Oxide. Silicon oxide is widely used in electronics where very thin (100 nm, one ten thousandth of a millimetre) layers are deposited. In our chip we require a much thicker layer > 0.01 mm. The challenge is to develop a process to manufacture these thick layers and new sensor chips. Once this technical problem is resolved, we will conduct short and long term testing to verify sufficient performance for the markets and applications. We will do this in partnership with sensor companies who we hope to work with to bring the product to market. The outcome of the project should be a license agreement with a company and a new product line.

The conditions in which materials are required to operate are becoming ever more challenging. Operating temperatures and pressures are increasing in all areas of manufacture, energy generation, transport and environmental clean-up. Often the high temperatures are combined with severe chemical environments and exposure to high energy and, in the nuclear industry, to ionising radiation. The production and processing of next-generation materials capable of operating in these conditions will be non-trivial, especially at the scale required in many of these applications. In some cases, totally new compositions, processing and joining strategies will have to be developed. The need for long-term reliability in many components means that defects introduced during processing will need to be kept to an absolute minimum or defect-tolerant systems developed, e.g. via fibre reinforcement. Modelling techniques that link different length and time scales to define the materials chemistry, microstructure and processing strategy are key to speeding up the development of these next-generation materials. Further, they will not function in isolation but as part of a system. It is the behaviour of the latter that is crucial, so that interactions between different materials, the joining processes, the behaviour of the different parts under extreme conditions and how they can be made to work together, must be understood. Our vision is to develop the required understanding of how the processing, microstructures and properties of materials systems operating in extreme environments interact to the point where materials with the required performance can be designed and then manufactured. Aligned with the Materials Genome Initiative in the USA, we will integrate hierarchical and predictive modelling capability in fields where experiments are extremely difficult and expensive. The team have significant experience of working in this area. Composites based on 'exotic' materials such as zirconium diborides and silicon carbide have been developed for use as leading edges for hypersonic vehicles over a 3 year, DSTL funded collaboration between the 3 universities associated with this proposal. World-leading achievements include densifying them in <10 mins using a relatively new technique known as spark plasma sintering (SPS); measuring their thermal and mechanical properties at up to 2000oC; assessing their oxidation performance at extremely high heat fluxes and producing fibre-reinforced systems that can withstand exceptionally high heating rates, e.g. 1000oC s-1, and temperatures of nearly 3000oC for several minutes. The research planned for this Programme Grant is designed to both spin off this knowledge into materials processing for nuclear fusion and fission, aerospace and other applications where radiation, oxidation and erosion resistance at very high temperatures are essential and to gain a deep understanding of the processing-microstructure-property relations of these materials and how they interact with each other by undertaking one of the most thorough assessments ever, allowing new and revolutionary compositions, microstructures and composite systems to be designed, manufactured and tested. A wide range of potential crystal chemistries will be considered to enable identification of operational mechanisms across a range of materials systems and to achieve paradigm changing developments. The Programme Grant would enable us to put in place the expertise required to produce a chain of knowledge from prediction and synthesis through to processing, characterisation and application that will enable the UK to be world leading in materials for harsh environments.

The conditions in which materials are required to operate are becoming ever more challenging. Operating temperatures and pressures are increasing in all areas of manufacture, energy generation, transport and environmental clean-up. Often the high temperatures are combined with severe chemical environments and exposure to high energy and, in the nuclear industry, to ionising radiation. The production and processing of next-generation materials capable of operating in these conditions will be non-trivial, especially at the scale required in many of these applications. In some cases, totally new compositions, processing and joining strategies will have to be developed. The need for long-term reliability in many components means that defects introduced during processing will need to be kept to an absolute minimum or defect-tolerant systems developed, e.g. via fibre reinforcement. Modelling techniques that link different length and time scales to define the materials chemistry, microstructure and processing strategy are key to speeding up the development of these next-generation materials. Further, they will not function in isolation but as part of a system. It is the behaviour of the latter that is crucial, so that interactions between different materials, the joining processes, the behaviour of the different parts under extreme conditions and how they can be made to work together, must be understood. Our vision is to develop the required understanding of how the processing, microstructures and properties of materials systems operating in extreme environments interact to the point where materials with the required performance can be designed and then manufactured. Aligned with the Materials Genome Initiative in the USA, we will integrate hierarchical and predictive modelling capability in fields where experiments are extremely difficult and expensive. The team have significant experience of working in this area. Composites based on 'exotic' materials such as zirconium diborides and silicon carbide have been developed for use as leading edges for hypersonic vehicles over a 3 year, DSTL funded collaboration between the 3 universities associated with this proposal. World-leading achievements include densifying them in <10 mins using a relatively new technique known as spark plasma sintering (SPS); measuring their thermal and mechanical properties at up to 2000oC; assessing their oxidation performance at extremely high heat fluxes and producing fibre-reinforced systems that can withstand exceptionally high heating rates, e.g. 1000oC s-1, and temperatures of nearly 3000oC for several minutes. The research planned for this Programme Grant is designed to both spin off this knowledge into materials processing for nuclear fusion and fission, aerospace and other applications where radiation, oxidation and erosion resistance at very high temperatures are essential and to gain a deep understanding of the processing-microstructure-property relations of these materials and how they interact with each other by undertaking one of the most thorough assessments ever, allowing new and revolutionary compositions, microstructures and composite systems to be designed, manufactured and tested. A wide range of potential crystal chemistries will be considered to enable identification of operational mechanisms across a range of materials systems and to achieve paradigm changing developments. The Programme Grant would enable us to put in place the expertise required to produce a chain of knowledge from prediction and synthesis through to processing, characterisation and application that will enable the UK to be world leading in materials for harsh environments.