The advent of carbon-fibre composite passenger aircraft, such as the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350, has been primarily driven by the need to reduce structural weight. Higher operating efficiencies per revenue passenger kilometre also contribute to a reduction in environmental impact where 1 kg of fuel saved equates to a reduction of 3.15 kg of CO2 emissions. Indeed the European Union has set ambitious aircraft emission reduction targets by 2050 as the level of commercial air traffic is set to continue doubling every fifteen years. The high specific strength and stiffness, and corrosion and fatigue resistance of carbon-fibre composite materials, make them highly suitable for lightweight aerostructures. In laminated form, these superior properties are tempered by the material's relatively low through-thickness strength and fracture toughness which makes composite structures susceptible to impact damage. Carbon-fibre composites also have low electrical conductivity which necessitates the need for additional measures to ensure adequate lightning strike protection. The industry has adopted the use of a fine metallic mesh incorporated into the aerodynamic surfaces. This approach adds unnecessary weight to the structure as well as increasing manufacture and maintenance complexity. Composite materials also have low thermal conductivity which impacts on the design of anti-icing systems. In recent years, a number of research groups have explored the unique properties of nanoparticles dispersed in resin or introduced between lamina interfaces, to address these limitations. The use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) especially, generated much excitement due their phenomenal structural and transport properties. The results to date have been highly variable and have fallen well short of expectations. This is partly due to a lack of interdisciplinary collaboration where fundamental questions, requiring input from chemists, physicists, material scientists and research engineers, were not adequately investigated. The proposed research in MACANTA aims to rectify this by bringing together a team with highly complementary expertise to increase the fundamental understanding of the influence of physical and chemical characteristics of different CNT assemblies in pursuit of developing multifunctional composites which mitigate the known shortcomings as well as providing additional functionality. A unique aspect of MACANTA is the emphasis on understanding and exploiting the different forms of CNT assemblies to best serve specific functions and integrated within a single structure. The team has the unique capability of producing very high quality CNTs, produced as highly-aligned 'forests'. These may be harnessed in this form and strategically placed between plies to increase through-thickness fracture toughness. Beyond simply dispersing within the matrix, they may also be 'sheared' to produce aligned buckypaper, drawn into very thin webs or spun into yarns, where their respective electrical and thermal conductivity will be investigated. These CNT assemblies will be assessed for improving lightning strike protection and providing anti-icing capability. The piezoresistive property of CNT webs will also be explored for in-situ structural health monitoring of adhesively bonded composite joints. The successful completion of the research proposed in MACANTA will culminate in the manufacture of a set of demonstrator multifunctional composite panels. They will represent a significant advancement in the state-of-the-art and provide a competitive advantage to interested stakeholders. It will also provide an ideal training platform for the development of skills of three postdoctoral researchers and two associated PhD students funded by QUB.

This year, the global demand for nanomaterial, which is already a multi-billion$ industry, will have grown 2.5-fold since 2012. Current nanomaterials production methods are at least 1000 times more wasteful when compared to the production of bulk and fine chemicals. Consequently there is an urgent need to develop green production methods for nanomaterials which can allow greater control over materials properties, yet require less energy, produce less waste (i.e. eco-friendly) and are cost-effective. Nature produces more than 60 distinct inorganic nanomaterials (e.g. CaCO3, Fe3O4, silica) on the largest of scales through self-assembly under ambient conditions (biomineralisation). Although biological methods for nanomaterials synthesis (e.g. using microorganisms or complex enzymes) are effective in reducing environmental burden, they are expensive, inefficient and/or currently not scalable to industrial production. We will adopt a synthetic biology (SynBio) approach, which is one of the EPSRC's core strategic themes, by harnessing the biological principles to design advanced nanomaterials leading to novel manufacturing methods. SynBio is a very powerful tool for the production of high-precision advanced functional nanomaterials and our approach marries two of the "8 great technologies for the future" ("Synthetic Biology" and "Advanced Nanomaterials"). Instead of using cells or microbes, our SynBio strategy uses synthetic molecules (SynBio additives) inspired from biomineralisation. SynBio produces a wide range of well-defined and tunable nanomaterials under mild (ambient) conditions, quickly and with little waste. Our SynBio approach offers the potential for high-yields, like the traditional chemical precipitation method, together with the precision, customisation, efficiency and low waste of biomineralisation. The bulk of research on bioinspired synthesis of nanomaterials has been performed at small scales and, although there are good opportunities for developing nanomaterials manufacturing based on bioinspired approaches, there are no reports on larger-scale investigations. Adopting a bioinspired SynBio approach, this project will enable the controlled synthesis and scalability of silica and magnetic nanoparticles (SNP and MNP) which are worth ~$11 billion globally. These methods are far more amenable to scale-up and can truly be considered 'green'. This SynBio process can reduce the manufacturing carbon footprint (by >90%), thus providing a significant cost benefit to industry.