Tackling industrial emissions is essential for the UK to deliver on its climate commitments and achieving economic and social prosperity from the transition to net zero. IDRIC was established in 2021 as part of the UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge to support the decarbonisation of industrial clusters. During this time, IDRIC has developed an influential and impactful network at a critical time and become an essential catalyst bringing together the research and innovation community to accelerate the pace and scale of industrial cluster decarbonisation. Funding for current IDRIC activities will cease in Spring 2024. However, the need for the functions IDRIC is delivering - the research work plus bringing together the relevant players in an environment that allows and encourages trust and collaboration, reduces barriers and accelerates progress - will continue for decades. The UK needs to take long term, multi-decadal decisions to providing long term commitment for industry emission reductions into the 2030s and IDRIC is exceptionally well placed to lead EPSRC activity towards the delivery of the UK's Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy. This proposal represents funding for a 12-month transitional period (April-2024 to March-2025), which will be crucial to support IDRIC in maintaining essential momentum and the community cohesion necessary to safeguard the knowledge, experience and relationships built at this critical time for industrial decarbonisation. The objectives have been co-created with industry and academia building upon the established sense of belonging and the long-term relationships and associated trust required to deliver: Continue to synthesise and disseminate learnings and impacts from the cluster focussed, challenge-led research delivered in 2021-2024. Foresight and horizon-scan of industry-informed research and innovation needs of decarbonisation to deliver towards targets of 2030, 2040 and 2050. Co-create and share knowledge by maintaining active networks and platforms to stimulate cross-learning and engender national/international collaborations for developing net zero solutions. Support policy, skills development and mission advocacy by providing evidence to policymakers, regulators, industry, the wider supply chain and the public to promote decarbonisation. To date, IDRIC have carefully considered that continued engagement is critical and also dependent on stakeholders gaining ongoing strategic benefit from their interaction. This has been key to IDRIC's current success, as shown by bringing together relevant players in an environment that allows and encourages trust and collaboration, reduces barriers and accelerates progress. Therefore, with this 12-month funding we will be prioritising key stakeholder engagement that are aligned with 3 workstreams; Clusters & Partnerships; KE & Synthesis; Cross-cutting Themes (Policy, Skills, EDI). The activities for this phase of IDRIC are designed to utilise IDRIC's unique convening power. They will deliver a suite of outputs e.g. (frontiers report, industry net-zero innovation roadmap) scoped through engagement with the community to ensure maximum impact from the current phase and strategic activities in support of a mapping a clear path for the critical steps required from 2025-2030 - crucial to enabling the realisation of the UKs first net-zero cluster by 2030.

The UK Foundation Industries (Glass, Metals, Cement, Ceramics, Bulk Chemicals and Paper), are worth £52B to the UK economy, produce 28 million tonnes of materials per year and account for 10% of the UK total CO2 emissions. These industries face major challenges in meeting the UK Government's legal commitment for 2050 to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 100% relative to 1990, as they are characterised by highly intensive use of both resources and energy. While all sectors are implementing steps to increase recycling and reuse of materials, they are at varying stages of creating road maps to zero carbon. These roadmaps depend on the switching of the national grid to low carbon energy supply based on green electricity and sustainable sources of hydrogen and biofuels along with carbon capture and storage solutions. Achievement of net zero carbon will also require innovations in product and process design and the adoption of circular economy and industrial symbiosis approaches via new business models, enabled as necessary by changes in national and global policies. Additionally, the Governments £4.7B National Productivity Investment Fund recognises the need for raising UK productivity across all industrial sectors to match best international standards. High levels of productivity coupled with low carbon strategies will contribute to creating a transformation of the foundation industry landscape, encouraging strategic retention of the industries in the UK, resilience against global supply chain shocks such as Covid-19 and providing quality jobs and a clean environment. The strategic importance of these industries to UK productivity and environmental targets has been acknowledged by the provision of £66M from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to support a Transforming Foundation Industries cluster. Recognising that the individual sectors will face many common problems and opportunities, the TFI cluster will serve to encourage and facilitate a cross sectoral approach to the major challenges faced. As part of this funding an Academic Network Plus will be formed, to ensure the establishment of a vibrant community of academics and industry that can organise and collaborate to build disciplinary and interdisciplinary solutions to the major challenges. The Network Plus will serve as a basis to ensure that the ongoing £66M TFI programme is rolled out, underpinned by a portfolio of the best available UK interdisciplinary science, and informed by cross sectoral industry participation. Our network, initially drawn from eight UK universities, and over 30 industrial organisations will support the UK foundation industries by engaging with academia, industry, policy makers and non-governmental organisations to identify and address challenges and opportunities to co-develop and adopt transformative technologies, business models and working practices. Our expertise covers all six foundation industries, with relevant knowledge of materials, engineering, bulk chemicals, manufacturing, physical sciences, informatics, economics, circular economy and the arts & humanities. Through our programme of mini-projects, workshops, knowledge transfer, outreach and dissemination, the Network will test concepts and guide the development of innovative outcomes to help transform UK foundation industries. The Network will be inclusive across disciplines, embracing best practice in Knowledge Exchange from the Arts and Humanities, and inclusive of the whole UK academic and industrial communities, enabling access for all to the activity programme and project fund opportunities.

The Transforming the Foundation Industries Challenge has set out the background of the six foundation industries; cement, ceramics, chemicals, glass, metals and paper, which produce 28 Mt pa (75% of all materials in our economy) with a value of £52Bn but also create 10% of UK CO2 emissions. These materials industries are the root of all supply chains providing fundamental products into the industrial sector, often in vertically-integrated fashion. They have a number of common factors: they are water, resource and energy-intensive, often needing high temperature processing; they share processes such as grinding, heating and cooling; they produce high-volume, often pernicious waste streams, including heat; and they have low profit margins, making them vulnerable to energy cost changes and to foreign competition. Our Vision is to build a proactive, multidisciplinary research and practice driven Research and Innovation Hub that optimises the flows of all resources within and between the FIs. The Hub will work with communities where the industries are located to assist the UK in achieving its Net Zero 2050 targets, and transform these industries into modern manufactories which are non-polluting, resource efficient and attractive places to be employed. TransFIRe is a consortium of 20 investigators from 12 institutions, 49 companies and 14 NGO and government organisations related to the sectors, with expertise across the FIs as well as energy mapping, life cycle and sustainability, industrial symbiosis, computer science, AI and digital manufacturing, management, social science and technology transfer. TransFIRe will initially focus on three major challenges: 1 Transferring best practice - applying "Gentani": Across the FIs there are many processes that are similar, e.g. comminution, granulation, drying, cooling, heat exchange, materials transportation and handling. Using the philosophy Gentani (minimum resource needed to carry out a process) this research would benchmark and identify best practices considering resource efficiencies (energy, water etc.) and environmental impacts (dust, emissions etc.) across sectors and share information horizontally. 2 Where there's muck there's brass - creating new materials and process opportunities. Key to the transformation of our Foundation Industries will be development of smart, new materials and processes that enable cheaper, lower-energy and lower-carbon products. Through supporting a combination of fundamental research and focused technology development, the Hub will directly address these needs. For example, all sectors have material waste streams that could be used as raw materials for other sectors in the industrial landscape with little or no further processing. There is great potential to add more value by "upcycling" waste by further processes to develop new materials and alternative by-products from innovative processing technologies with less environmental impact. This requires novel industrial symbioses and relationships, sustainable and circular business models and governance arrangements. 3 Working with communities - co-development of new business and social enterprises. Large volumes of warm air and water are produced across the sectors, providing opportunities for low grade energy capture. Collaboratively with communities around FIs, we will identify the potential for co-located initiatives (district heating, market gardening etc.). This research will highlight issues of equality, diversity and inclusiveness, investigating the potential from societal, environmental, technical, business and governance perspectives. Added value to the project comes from the £3.5 M in-kind support of materials and equipment and use of manufacturing sites for real-life testing as well as a number of linked and aligned PhDs/EngDs from HEIs and partners This in-kind support will offer even greater return on investment and strongly embed the findings and operationalise them within the sector.

Decarbonising both heating and cooling across residential, business and industry sectors is fundamental to delivering the recently announced net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets. Such a monumental change to this sector can only be delivered through the collective advancement of science, engineering and technology combined with prudent planning, demand management and effective policy. The aim of the proposed H+C Zero Network will be to facilitate this through funded workshops, conferences and secondments which in combination will enable researchers, technology developers, managers, policymakers and funders to come together to share their progress, new knowledge and experiences. It will also directly impact on this through a series of research funding calls which will offer seed funding to address key technical, economic, social, environmental and policy challenges. The proposed Network will focus on the following five themes which are essential for decarbonising heating and cooling effectively: Theme 1 Primary engineering technologies and systems for decarbonisation Theme 2 Underpinning technologies, materials, control, retrofit and infrastructure Theme 3 Future energy systems and economics Theme 4 Social impact and end users' perspectives Theme 5 Policy Support and leadership for the transition to net-zero

I will establish the underpinning scientific and technical knowledge to enable the UK cement industry and UK producers of alumina-containing waste to create new supply chains for the manufacture of high-performance low-CO2 cements. I will also develop a user-friendly process model that can optimise cement clinker manufacture from waste. Moreover, I will support the academic and industrial community by creating a much-needed centre for experimental thermodynamics in the UK and will become established and recognised as a leader in low-carbon cement production. Cement is the most manufactured product on the planet and is essential to the development of infrastructure and economy. Cement manufacture is responsible for 2% of the UK's carbon emissions where more than 8 Mt p.a. of, the generally employed, Portland cement (PC) clinker are produced. Globally, the manufacture of 4 Gt of cement p.a. is responsible for 8% of man-made CO2 emissions. Calcium sulfoaluminate (CSA) cements can achieve more than 30% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to PC, on a mass basis, when produced from virgin raw materials. The properties of CSA cements are often superior to those of PC and are therefore used in special applications such as fast-track rehabilitation of highways and airfields. Considering their savings in work-time and their higher performance, CO2 savings from CSA cement, compared to PC, are in fact greater. Moreover, CSA cement can be produced in existing PC plant configurations without major modifications; thus, low industrial capex. CSA cements are normally produced from bauxite, limestone, and clay. However, the use of CSA cements has been limited in the UK due to the lack of a raw alumina source (i.e., bauxite), which is required for CSA manufacture; any CSA cement currently used in the UK is imported. On the other hand, the UK industry produces significant volumes of waste material containing alumina which this Fellowship research aims to valorise. Two major waste streams are potable aluminium water treatment sludge (aWTS), and aluminium oxide residue (AOR) from secondary aluminium production and recycling. The UK produces ~90 kt of aWTS (dry) and ~70 kt of ALS per year which can be used as alumina sources, replacing bauxite, to produce ~1M tonnes of CSA cement p.a., and replacing up to 50% of virgin raw materials with waste. This translational research will create a new subindustry in the UK, by enabling CSA cement manufacture through an innovative process, valorising UK industrial residues, and creating new UK products. However, to develop and establish the manufacturing process for targeted cement clinkers, the presence and fluctuation of impurities in the wastes must be addressed. Industrially, the proportions of cement clinker phases produced through thermal processing of the raw materials are designed using empirical equations. This approach is not suitable to produce CSA clinker, especially when alternative raw materials (containing foreign elements) are used. A more flexible approach is required. Therefore, this Fellowship research will also derive necessary fundamental material data for the phases involved in CSA clinkering from waste and use the data to build a user-friendly pyro-processing simulator that will allow for rapid raw material mix and process design, optimisation, and troubleshooting. This simulator will also enable identification of other potentially useful feed sources for clinker manufacture; thus, a reduction in future experimental clinkering tests. As part of this Fellowship, I will also establish the first centre for experimental thermodynamics in the UK. I will leverage the successful completion of the Fellowship to lead research in low-carbon cement production and specialising in thermochemistry. I also aim to become an ambassador for CSA cement and concrete in the UK and to be involved in influencing policy and writing standards for CSA cement and concrete.