The production of some of the simplest but most important chemicals manufactured by the chemical industry are made in complicated, indirect ways. Many chemicals derived from natural gas are synthesised through an intermediate known as "synthesis gas", a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The production of chemicals from synthesis gas is extremely well established and many processes have been operating for several decades. However, the production of synthesis gas requires high pressures (30 atm) and very high temperatures (800 C and above). The aggressive conditions used for the production of synthesis gas require expensive manufacturing plants and waste 25% of the natural gas feedstock to generate the high temperatures required for the reaction. An alternative route to produce chemicals from natural gas would be to employ catalysts that operate at lower temperature and are able to selectively oxidise the hydrocarbons present in natural gas. The direct conversion of natural gas would enable more sustainable and efficient utilisation of this valuable natural resource. However, despite progress in selective oxidation catalysis research, no industrially practised direct natural gas conversion process is in operation due to the overall poor performance compared to synthesis gas based routes. This is commonly due to the fact that the catalysts tend to over oxidise the hydrocarbons, resulting in the formation of large quantities of carbon dioxide. The development of direct natural gas conversion to chemicals would also provide an alternative to the flaring of associated natural gas (gas co-produced with oil) - it is estimated that 143 billion cubic metres of natural gas are flared per year, a quantity greater than the natural gas production of Kuwait. The goal of this research is to develop new, selective oxidation catalysts and new manufacturing processes for the partial oxidation of methane and ethane (the principle components of natural gas) for more sustainable production of essential, commodity chemicals. The catalysts utilised in this research will be based on zeolites, which are derived from sustainable, earth abundant materials and are already widely used in the chemical industry as green catalysts. The programme of this fellowship will modify zeolites to form new materials that can selectively oxidise hydrocarbons to valuable chemical products. A key aspect of the research is understanding how the structure of the catalysts affects the outcome of reaction, as this will enable the development of structure - function relationships, enabling the development of improved catalysts. Deactivation processes and catalyst lifetime, key aspects of industrial catalyst development, will be explored to ensure industrial relevance.

The bespoke Multiscale Metrology Suite, will combine powerful leading-edge detectors for measuring nanomaterial properties and transform the measurement of health nanotechnologies. We will build a modular system combining the latest in flow field fractionation technologies with mass spectrometry, Raman and light scattering detectors for the physical and chemical measurement of nanomaterial properties. The requested equipment will enable world-leading researchers at the University of Strathclyde, other UK academic institutions, and industry to accelerate their research into new technologies for healthcare applications and remain competitive in the global race for delivering new innovations in health. Moreover, this equipment will generate new research avenues and partnership opportunities that will create a step-change in the physical and chemical analytical capability and infrastructure for UK health nanotechnology research. This leading-edge suite will ultimately reduce the time and costs associated with delivering new diagnostics and drug treatments, improving quality of life and delivering much needed lifesaving drugs to patients. Strong partnerships with industry partners and government facilities will ensure that this national facility will remain globally-competitive and deliver innovations.

Toothpastes - and especially specialised pharmaceutical toothpastes, whose major gel component is not water-based - have a surprisingly complex and ill-understood manufacturing process. There is the background fluid, which is already a mixture of a viscous liquid and a polymer; then solid particles are added. These are abrasive and do much of the tooth cleaning; but they also swell during processing, and the system becomes much thicker when they are added. Finally surfactant is added to help the toothpaste to foam in the mouth; and just to complicate matters further, air bubbles also creep in during processing. In this project, we will systematically address all the stages of toothpaste processing. We will carry out precise small-scale rheological measurements to discover how the particles swell and how they interact once they have swollen: for example, do they absorb parts of the long polymer molecules to form a network, or do partly-absorbed polymers act as "brushes" to push swollen particles apart? We will also measure the overall behaviour of each stage of the system (the background fluid on its own, or with particles, or with bubbles) and create a phase map of system behaviour in terms of its composition. We will use advanced mathematical modelling techniques to derive new equations that can describe the behaviour of a mixture - for example, background fluid and swollen particles - as if it were a single material. Finally, we will use our new constitutive equations in computer simulations to predict the behaviour of the paste in a real processing environment, address the manufacturing challenges such novel formulations entail and propose new strategies to overcome these. The research needs a team with many different specialist abilities, across experimentation, modelling and simulation, and also needs close ties with industry to ensure we are asking the right questions. GSK is a major collaborator on this project. The project is also supported by Xaar the leader in inkjet printing technology. With the understanding we generate, they hope to make their manufacturing processes both more efficient and more reliable and also develop new formulations to address future customer needs.

The FINESSE NanoBio team is proposing a new UK capability in imaging, cross-sectioning and patterning materials that are traditionally very difficult to examine at the nano and sub-nanometre scale without seriously effecting their structure or behaviour. It is important that the UK is placed at the forefront of this research, enabling start-ups, SMEs and large companies to drive innovation and growth with stronger underpinning scientific understanding. To address this, the team is requesting funding for a customised Zeiss NanoFab tool that consists of: 1. An ultra-high precision imaging capability (sub 0.5 nm) of conductive and non-conductive samples 2. An ultra-high precision patterning and TEM sample preparation capability (2 nm) of the same range of samples 3. A cryogenic sample handling system to enable imaging of biological materials and biological or fluid interfaces with materials and structures. The tool achieves this revolutionary performance by focusing a stream of helium ions onto the surface and measuring the subsequently released secondary electrons. Ions can also be used to remove material in their path for patterning or cross-sectioning materials. This system has three ion options, gallium for bulk removal, neon for additional polishing and cutting and helium for very careful polishing. This difference in behaviour is due to the lower mass of the ions. Direct writing of metals in 10nm feature sizes is also feasible with this system, which will enable electrical contacts to be fabricated to advanced functional materials to test, for example, their conductivity or electrochemical behaviour when making sensors. The requested support will have far-reaching impact through the projects and industrial partners of almost 50 research groups actively supporting this proposal in Cambridge, across 10 different Departments and 4 different Schools. This sphere of scientific influence is amplified by the strong support from 5 universities, 2 catapult organisations and 3 industrial network organisations, who represent an estimated 1500 companies. This incredible response by academics and industrial researchers means the facility will also drive new engagement and collaborations between these partiers and will foster collaboration, through for example the planned symposium and engagement events. The commissioning, access, outreach and management will be delivered by a small committee of experienced researchers and microscopy suite managers, with review and guidance from a larger steering group of EPSRC, industrial and academic partners to ensure fair access, an environment that fosters collaborations and postgraduate education.

The current slump in oil prices should not lead us to ignore the fact that, in the future, an ever-increasing proportion of the fuels and chemicals, required for everything from jumbo jets to toy elephants, will need to come from renewable resources. This means a huge expansion of the fermentation industry, and the cost of the required manufacturing plant will rapidly become unaffordable. The solution is to move from performing fermentations batchwise (like manufacturing cars one at a time) to continuous processes (like an automobile production line). This major change presents a number of challenges in engineering production microbes, and in designing and controlling the industrial processes in which they operate. This project aims to produce a pipeline that will meet all of these challenges in an integrative manner. It will result in stable and robust production microbes in which there is an optimal balance between the growth of the process microorganism and formation of the industrial product that it generates. The new microbes will be exploited in new continuous processes, and process controls will be developed in which the microbe is 'rewarded' with nutrients for generating high levels of the industrial product. Such a 'control by incentives' strategy will, in itself, contribute to the stability of the production organism. The environmental impacts of the new processes will be assessed to ensure that they are cleaner and greener than the chemical processes that they are replacing. Lastly, the costs of building new factories to manufacture the chemicals will be assessed, together with the costs of operating them, to ensure that the new continuous bio-manufacturing processes will be profitable for UK companies.