Evolution over the eons has made Nature a treasure trove of clever solutions to sustainability, resilience, and ways to efficiently utilize scarce resources. The Centre for Nature Inspired Engineering will draw lessons from nature to engineer innovative solutions to our grand challenges in energy, water, materials, health, and living space. Rather than imitating nature out of context or succumbing to superficial analogies, research at the Centre will take a decidedly scientific approach to uncover fundamental mechanisms underlying desirable traits, and apply these mechanisms to design and synthesise artificial systems that hereby borrow the traits of the natural model. The Centre will initially focus on three key mechanisms, as they are so prevalent in nature, amenable to practical implementation, and are expected to have transformational impact on urgent issues in sustainability and scalable manufacturing. These mechanisms are: (T1) "Hierarchical Transport Networks": the way nature bridges microscopic to macroscopic length scales in order to preserve the intricate microscopic or cellular function throughout (as in trees, lungs and the circulatory system); (T2) "Force Balancing": the balanced use of fundamental forces, e.g., electrostatic attraction/repulsion and geometrical confinement in microscopic spaces (as in protein channels in cell membranes, which trump artificial membranes in selective, high-permeation separation performance); and (T3) "Dynamic Self-Organisation": the creation of robust, adaptive and self-healing communities thanks to collective cooperation and emergence of complex structures out of much simpler individual components (as in bacterial communities and in biochemical cycles). Such nature-inspired, rather than narrowly biomimetic approach, allows us to marry advanced manufacturing capabilities and access to non-physiological conditions, with nature's versatile mechanisms that have been remarkably little employed in a rational, bespoke manner. High-performance computing and experimentation now allow us to unravel fundamental mechanisms, from the atomic to the macroscopic, in an unprecedented way, providing the required information to transcend empiricism, and guide practical realisations of nature-inspired designs. In first instance, three examples will be developed to validate each of the aforementioned natural mechanisms, and simultaneously apply them to problems of immediate relevance that tie in to the Grand Challenges in energy, water, materials and scalable manufacturing. These are: (1) robust, high-performance fuel cells with greatly reduced amount of precious catalyst, by using a lung-inspired architecture; (2) membranes for water desalination inspired by the mechanism of biological cell membranes; (3) high-performance functional materials, resp. architectural design (cities, buildings), informed by agent-based modelling on bacteria-inspired, resp. human communities, to identify roads to robust, adaptive complex systems. To meet these ambitious goals, the Centre assembles an interdisciplinary team of experts, from chemical and biochemical engineering, to computer science, architecture, materials, chemistry and genetics. The Centre researchers collaborate with, and seek advice from industrial partners from a wide range of industries, which accelerates practical implementation. The Centre has an open, outward looking mentality, inviting broader collaboration beyond the core at UCL. It will devote significant resources to explore the use of the validated nature-inspired mechanisms to other applications, and extend investigation to other natural mechanisms that may inform solutions to problems in sustainability and scalable manufacturing.

Existing theories for particulate flow lack the robustness, predictability and flexibility required to handle the totality of phenomena that such flow may exhibit. Some unwanted industrial issues (such as particle agglomeration) and their management still remain an "art". Current practice is based mainly on ad-hoc models for each specific flow. I propose a novel approach, based on the combination of physical evidence and mathematical methods (statistical mechanics) that will lead to the formulation of a reliable theory applicable to industrial and natural phenomena. A successful theory will create a paradigm shift in the way particulate flow is modelled and will produce a tool that can be employed to substitute ad hoc models, hence avoiding a priori judgements of the flow conditions before selecting the appropriate model. The work proposed aims at bridging the gap between particle technology and rheology. It will result in devising a robust theory able to describe the meso-scale phenomena and link them to particle interactions. The theory will strongly rely on implementing accurate rheological measurement to validate the theory at the meso-scale and to assure a meaningful scale-up to the reactor scale. It will produce fundamental as well as user orientated research by developing a novel predictor which has the potential to significantly reduce production costs and improve the product quality in three areas important to the UK economy, namely pharmaceuticals, paints and detergents, valued at £200B per year

Finding an efficient way to put in contact gases and solids is essential for many of the operations in the manufacturing and energy industries. Powders are often primary products e.g. chemicals, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), or key materials e.g. biomass, adsorbents, oxygen carriers, catalysts. Process intensification looks into ways of making gas-solid contact devices compact, use energy efficiently and generate less waste. As we transition into clean energies and the decarbonisation of industry, the need for new materials and processes accelerates. In the next decade we will rely in digitalization and the access to a vast amount of data to improve control, but also to predict the potential of new initiatives, emerging technology, and changes in the supply chain. We will need to be able to reconfigure existing processes, absorb or discard new materials, quickly and without unrealistic investments. This means that new contact devices can no longer simply focus on the optimisation of the rigid conception of the classic unit operations. Design must be flexible. Units must be efficient, but also robust and responsive, designed to adapt to changing targets, multiple functions, be retrofitted, and integrated within advance control strategies. In this award, I put forward a new class of responsive technology: Responsive gas-solid Vortex Chambers (REVOC), that can adapt in real-time to changing conditions to maximise the efficiency of gas-solid processes in the manufacturing (e.g. advance coating), and energy sectors (e.g. Power-to-X reactors). Swirl has been used for long in intensification to improve the transfer of heat and mass between a gas and a solid. High-g devices (those creating a very strong swirling motion) are the most efficient and can process cohesive material, otherwise hard to mix. However, they are also difficult to design and often, hard to scale. Gas-solid vortex reactors (GSVRs) create a fast-rotating fluidized bed without any moving parts. They have shown great potential as catalytic reactors and their simplicity makes them easy to deploy, but they are not broadly applicable. Like most chambers, GSVRs are conceived for a given type of feedstock, and do not cope well with changes in loading (e.g. adding a liquid), solid properties (e.g. diameter), or when the powder features a broad range of size, or different formulations (e.g. foods, drugs, fuels). This project puts forward a new design concept whereby a vortex chamber becomes responsive and able to adapt its operation to the needs of the process, controlling, in-real time the dispersion of any feedstock. A REVOC is broadly applicable, more flexible, more robust, it can complete different functions and sequential processes. During this project, we will produce prototypes and use them to validate a modelling platform. We will deliver a radial chamber expanding the traditional concept into a responsive mode. We will then use a digital twin of the unit to optimise the design using several flow compartments. The optimal REVOC will then be commissioned, characterised, and applied to fluidised industrial products (excipients, foods, absorbents, solid fuels), settings the grounds for its application at scale.

Environmental and economic concerns related to the excessive use of fossil fuels, together with opportunities in circular economy and carbon negative technologies are paving the way for a fundamental reorganisation of the chemical industry. Oil refineries are being redesigned to couple petrochemical processes with bio-based productions and new thermo-chemical technologies more suited for small-scale operation. In this context, the invention of new (or restructured) processes for the synthesis of renewable intermediates, such as olefins generated from biomass is of crucial importance, since these molecules are fundamental building blocks for polymers, fuels and chemical industry. In order to unlock the transition to bio-substitutes in energy and manufacturing sectors, resource efficiency, process flexibility and intensification are of critical importance. To achieve these goals, we propose to employ a Nature-Inspired Solution (NIS) methodology, as a systematic platform for innovation and to inform transformative technology. The NIS methodology will be used to design and optimise modular bio-syngas conversion methods to manufacture "green" chemical products, including bio-olefins, at a scale suitable for decentralised applications. The research will focus on the novel concept of Sorption Enhanced Olefin Synthesis (SEOS), and the integrated design and performance of key system components (Synthesis Reactor - Catalysts Configuration - Life Cycle Analysis) to provide information on the underpinning reaction mechanisms, engineering performance and system dynamics that will facilitate deployment of future bio-based manufacturing plants.