Innovation in Materials

Innovation in materials Summary of a meeting held on Monday 11 November 2013 at the Royal Academy of Engineering in association with The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network. Innovation in materials Summary of a meeting held on Monday 11 November 2013 at the Royal Academy of Engineering in association with The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network.

Contents

2. The UK and global materials perspective 3

3. Materials in the engineering response to the biggest issues 5

4. Innovation in materials and processes 7

5. Innovation in applications 10

6. Innovation in market demands 16

7. Further information 19

8. Acknowledgements 20

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Registered Charity Number: 293074 c2 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 1 Worldwide, materials are seen as a priority for innovation but also as a source of competition and advantage

The Royal Academy of Engineering has run a series of meetings to highlight the opportunities and challenges of innovation in 2. The UK and global materials engineering sectors that have potential for growth and global reach. On 11 November 2013, Innovation in materials brought together perspective leading engineers, academics and business people from many branches of engineering – and beyond – to discuss issues and trends. The UK has a long tradition of and information and communication technologies – that are seen as having Materials have undergone a revolution in the past century, but in materials innovation, from the Bessemer steel process in the a key role in helping UK businesses many respects the revolution is only just beginning. Not much more to develop high-value products and mid-19th century through to the than 100 years ago, the range of materials used by engineers in services across all economic sectors products and systems was very limited: natural materials, many of Nobel Prize-winning developments and to generate significant growth for 1. Foreword which had been used since prehistory; a limited number of metals in graphene at the University the economy. in fairly uncomplicated metallurgical forms; and a few plastics and of Manchester. The minerals The Royal Academy of Engineering ceramics. The developments of the 20th century expanded greatly and mining industries were fundamental to the first Industrial supports, along with partners in the number of materials and our knowledge of their properties, and business and industry, several Revolution in the UK. The UK brought materials science much more close to manufacturing as we research programmes involved in sought to design the properties we wanted from engineered products. industry that is involved today in materials development. Materials products, processes, fabrication have also formed part of submissions Now, in the 21st century, the ability to design new materials and and recycling of materials is worth for both the Queen Elizabeth Prize to modify existing ones is still only in its infancy, and the potential around £197 billion a year. and the Annual MacRobert Award for is limitless and exciting. The possibility of influencing material engineering innovation. composition and properties at the atomic scale creates opportunities Materials research and development is at the heart of much of current Worldwide, materials are seen as a that we are only just starting to explore; the convergence of biology, public and privately financed work priority for innovation but also as a physics and chemistry is breaking down barriers. Innovation in at universities and in companies, and source of competition and advantage materials is transforming engineering and the world that we live in. the Technology Strategy Board has – and some concern. Research by identified energy and sustainability as Yale University into 62 metallic or The meeting heard presentations from academics, industrialists, the main drivers for current materials metalloid elements that have current innovators, materials scientists and users. This report is not a verbatim development. ‘Advanced materials’ uses, often in commonplace but record of the conference; rather, it seeks to highlight some of the is one of four ‘enabling technologies’ technically advanced devices such as smartphones that did not exist a issues raised and to contribute to further discussion. – the others are biosciences; electronics, sensors and photonics; generation ago, found that none of

2 Royal AcademyAcademy of of Engineering Engineering Innovation in materials 3 The medical technologies innovation eco-system

the 62 could be readily substituted or to use their availability as a political across the range of their applications or economic lever. But materials are by other materials. seen also as central to a less strident, more benign economic development – So-called ‘strategic materials’ include the potential for a ‘circular’ economy those that are currently believed to in which products and systems are be in short or constrained supply; designed from the outset with the these are the subject of political intention that the materials should be and diplomatic manoeuvring and reconfigured for reuse at the end of can create international tensions as their lifecycle. countries seek to safeguard supplies 3. Materials in the engineering response

Potential for a ‘circular’ economy in which products to the biggest issues and systems are designed from the outset with the intention that the materials should be reconfigured Innovation in materials in the 20th A great challenge for material for reuse at the end of their lifecycle century was about “working out scientists, Professor Miodownik said, how materials work and about the was “to link the scales together”: to replicate in large-scale devices and different structures inside them”, systems the materials phenomena said Professor Mark Miodownik, and properties that were now being Professor of Materials and Society seen and developed at the nanoscale. at University College London and “For instance, with carbon nanotubes, Director of the Institute of Making, if we could make these bigger, we Photo © Great Recovery who gave the keynote address at could make huge strides. The big gains will come with mass production the meeting. into larger structures.” Nature and biology already did this with a unified For the 21st century, the focus on materials structure that encompassed innovation will be about applying the very small and the very large in this knowledge to enable significant an integrated hierarchal structure, he progress on solving problems said: “We have to learn how to do this of energy provision and the in our human-built environment.” environment, he said. There was a contrast, however, between the Professor Miodownik identified two scale of the issues that needed to further challenges for materials be addressed and the level at which innovation in the 21st century: much of the research and innovation recycling, and the interface with work was taking place: the focus of biology. Processing and recycling are research in areas such as materials questions for the whole of mankind. modelling was at the nanoscale. “We are really not a credible set of “But”, he pointed out, “the big people if we create sophisticated stuff problems won’t be solved down and then when we’ve finished with there.”

4 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 5 it we put it in holes in the ground,” considered in terms of surgical he said. “It makes it seem as if we’re systems and prosthetics and this not intelligent enough to have done was an important facet, Professor the full lifecycle.” Bigger examples Miodownik said. People were going to were needed of ‘closed loops’, where be living longer, but they also wanted materials were fully recycled into new to be ‘fully functioning’ for longer as materials at the end of a product’s life well. But there were opportunities and nothing was thrown away. for innovation in adapting biological materials for other purposes, such The interface between biology as bacteria that could help to ‘heal’ and inanimate materials is often defects and degeneration in concrete. 4. Innovation in materials and processes

Bigger examples were needed of ‘closed loops’, where Some of the challenges that 4.1 Size and scale: engineering at materials were fully recycled into new materials at the Professor Mark Miodownik set the atomic and at the gargantuan end of a product’s life and nothing was thrown away down in his keynote address level were taken up in the session Graphene tends to take the headlines that dealt with innovation in in nanomaterials, and there have materials and processes. Much of been more than 7,000 patents Photo © Great the current research into materials taken out worldwide by researchers Recovery is investigating the structure and and developers working on it, properties of materials at the very said Dr Martin Kemp, Chairman of IOM3 nanomaterials committee. small scale, and there is a high But graphene is just one of many competition worldwide to translate nanomaterials under investigation the potential of materials such as worldwide: there are currently, graphene into real applications. for example, around 500 two- At the same time, work on dimensional materials. understanding the nature and Part of the excitement, Dr Kemp properties of biological materials said, was that at the nanoscale some is enabling developments that of these materials exhibit physical combine the organic and inorganic, and chemical properties that differ with potential benefits in areas from those of larger particles: they much wider than just surgery and interact with light, or they produce medicine. But the changes are not different chemical reactions. These just about products: new materials properties may make them suitable for applications such as new kinds are also feeding in to new methods of solar cells or as catalysts fixing of manufacturing that in turn pollution in vehicle exhaust systems. benefit materials developments.

6 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 7 Innovations in technology

Graphene, a material that was now ready to be made MakerBot consumer in serious amounts and with a very wide range of printer applications queuing up to take advantage of its © Econolyst physical properties: 200 times stronger than steel, conducts electricity better than copper and, as a sheet material, is impervious to gases

Graphene, however, is currently “the on DNA sequencing and through the real deal”, Dr Kemp said, a material lower cost of synthesis. that was now ready to be made in serious amounts and with a very The engineering aspect in this is wide range of applications queuing crucial and is what differentiates up to take advantage of its physical synthetic biology from the genetic 4.3 Manufacturing matters: how of Cambridge. The range of materials properties: 200 times stronger than engineering that has been done for additive technologies change that can be applied using additive steel, conducts electricity better 30 years, Dr Ellis said. Because products manufacturing is expanding, now than copper and, as a sheet material, the DNA codes are now better taking in glass, ceramics and even is impervious to gases. As a result, understood, desired effects can be Additive manufacturing has achieved elastomers. it is being put forward for a huge reliably designed into biological a degree of popular recognition range of potential uses in electronics systems over and over again: through the hype surrounding 3D With the extended range come other and sensors, as a barrier material biological ‘manufacturing’ becomes printing, although this is only part possibilities. Professor O’Neill cited to gases, exhibiting antimicrobial possible when you can reliably of a wider suite of technologies. current work on ‘growing’ prosthetic properties, in new kinds of solar cells predict and repeat the outcome. For designers and manufacturers, body implants to fit individual and touch screens, and in batteries New codes can be introduced into the benefits are the ability to make specifications, which is achieved by and catalysts. In this race to develop organisms to get them to do things structures, features and shapes that engineering specific features into innovations that use graphene, the that are different or useful: an early cannot be made by conventional the material to give new elements of UK was doing very well, Dr Kemp said. experiment put the genetic code manufacturing techniques and control and new functions. that produces light sensitivity in one the potential to take advantage bacterium into a different bacterium of different material properties More than that, however, he said 4.2 New ingredients: adding biology to enable the new host to detect the from new formulations of original that additive technologies “enable to chemistry in materials difference between light and dark. materials. So, for example, parts us to change the way we think about This is an example of where the made from powder metals may be materials”, by designing product Synthetic biology is the engineering biological code can be used as a form significantly lighter in weight than function as well as form into the of biology to build biological of on /off switch. those made conventionally from solid material itself. This is likely to lead to systems that display functions that metals by machining. new types of ‘designer materials’ and are not found in nature and that But synthetic biology opens up other even greater possibilities would be are repeatable. Dr Tom Ellis, lead possibilities that use DNA not just This, however, is only the start of the opened up when the manufacturing researcher at the EPSRC Centre for as ‘code’ but as a material in its own benefits that could come from these technologies broke free from the Synthetic Biology and Innovation at right. Dr Ellis cited work that has manufacturing technologies, said current additive two-dimensional Imperial College London, said that reprogrammed the genome in yeast Professor Bill O’Neill from the Institute layer-by-layer techniques to become the technology had reached a tipping and that looks to have promise in of Manufacturing at the University truly three-dimensional, he said. point towards practical application ‘growing’ chemicals including drugs through the work that had been done and biofuels.

8 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 9 Innovations in markets

Theft of metals such as lead and copper costs an estimated £220 million a year in the UK

5. Innovation in applications

The developments in materials 5.1 Tracking systems: materials science in terms of new properties, for security new formulations and new Theft of metals such as lead and methods of manufacture open up copper costs an estimated £220 a host of potential engineering million a year in the UK, and the innovations that promise to victims of crime are often august transform many aspects of current bodies and organisations – the Church business and industrial products of England, English Heritage, and the © 2014 and systems. The conference heard railway system, for example, lose BAE Systems roofs and wiring. The consequences presentations that explored four are not just measured in financial of these application areas that are terms and in inconvenience: there The Signature Materials project led 5.2 Strength and weight: materials already being exploited. are safety implications in the theft of by the Institute of Materials, Minerals for aerostructures wiring for signalling systems. and Mining (IOM3) with the Pryor Marking Technology company was The aerospace industry had long outlined by Dr Bernie Rickinson, been a leader in the adoption of new chief executive of IOM3. Signature materials, pioneering the use of Wire markings Materials has developed a system for lightweight metals such as aluminium © Signature permanently marking a wide range and of composites. But the message Materials of structural materials in different that Dr John Haddock, head of the forms such as sheet, tube and wire. materials engineering discipline The marked material is registered at BAE Systems, brought to the in a national database and can be conference was that new materials instantly identified if it is recovered. in themselves were not the whole There are plans to extend the scheme answer in the industry’s constant into new areas, such as battery quest for fuel efficiency and economy. materials.

10 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 11 Innovation in applications

Many of the big gains in terms of 5.3 Harnessing power: materials for weight saving through material energy substitution had already been made, he said, and the emphasis now was Global energy provision is in need of on production processes that would a double revolution, and innovation enable the next generation of benefits in materials is probably the only to be achieved on an industrial scale. way to achieve this, said Professor “For every material development, Ravi Silva FREng, head of the there needs to be research into Advanced Technology Institute at industrial processes to enable its use the University of Surrey. Revolution in practice,” he said. number one is required because the global demand for energy For new uses of composite materials keeps increasing year on year, within the industry, much of the and energy provision is the key current emphasis is on joining to solving virtually all the other technologies, with developments in grand challenges of water, food, adhesives enabling a cut to be made environmental pressures and poverty. in the numbers of fasteners, saving And a second revolution is needed weight and need for parts. Fewer because currently 80 to 85 % of fasteners then meant that structures energy supply depends on fossil fuels could have thinner skins, saving more and that is not sustainable in terms of weight. resources or of the environment.

This work, Dr Haddock said, required One answer, Professor Silva said, several developments, of which the had to be greater use of solar power, material innovation in terms of paste which currently accounts for only adhesives was only one. It needed 0.1 % of energy used worldwide. confidence that the joints created The sun provides around 165,000 would be reliably strong and this came Terawatts of potential energy each from automated surface preparation day, and global consumption now is and analysis and from devising a between 10 and 15TW/day: even if consistent method for applying the a lot of the sun’s energy is unusable adhesive; it also required systems and – when it falls on the ocean, for tools for inspecting the joints and for example – and even if global energy carrying out structural analysis. New demand quadruples by 2050, solar materials were just the starting point, power provides an answer. he said.

The sun provides around 165,000 Terawatts of potential energy each day, and global consumption now is between 10 and 15TW/day

12 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 13 To achieve this, however, requires a 5.4 Inside the body: materials for there is now the use of shape to take this much further. “But the leap-forward in technology. Where medical and surgical use memory polymers to provide better real potential is in entirely new Professor Silva sees potential to fit, Mr Farrar said. materials,” he said. These could solve this is in nanomaterials: the Biomaterials used in human body include self-assembling peptides current solar photovoltaics industry repairs and surgery are a $45 A third generation of biomaterials which might be injected into the body is dominated by crystalline silicon billion market worldwide and as goes further, however, and actively and then assemble themselves into at dimensions of 100µm. But new the average lifespan increases and encourages healing through the a scaffold to help rebuild damaged inorganic materials at a 100nm size demand grows for better quality delivery of drugs or by stimulating tissue, bone or nerves. could behave in the same way as of life in old age, so the market will repair. Examples here include stents single crystals and be applied in expand. But biomaterials should not that release drugs to aid circulatory This is innovation in materials entirely new ways, such as in paints. only be thought of as a technology system repair and spinal fusion but, he said, it linked across also for the elderly, said David Farrar, cages that contain bone proteins into other areas of innovation – in Cheap, readily available solar energy science manager for biomaterials at on a collagen sponge. There is a the development of sensors and could also help to solve some of the the medical devices group Smith & lot of potential, Mr Farrar said, for wireless communications for in-body energy sector’s other technology Nephew: applications such as fracture materials technologies such as monitoring, for example. conundrums, Professor Silva said. repairs and wound healing applied at nanoscale crystals and scaffolds It might make electrolysis of water all ages. to produce hydrogen commercially viable, helping energy storage, Mr Farrar outlined three stages in the for instance. Adventurousness in evolution of biomaterials. The first materials innovation could be key to stage, characterised by the earliest But the real potential is in entirely new materials. solving big issues, he said: “There’s an joint replacement implants, had seen overwhelming need for innovation to biologically inert materials used, and These could include self-assembling peptides which drive the economics.” whereas they had caused problems might be injected into the body and then assemble with wear and debris there were now improved formulations with surface themselves into a scaffold to help rebuild damaged treatments that promised 30 years tissue, bone or nerves of use.

The second stage of biomaterials had seen the development of bioresorbable polymers and was first exemplified by the polymer screws used to fix sutures and more recently by bone repairs. In these applications,

Shape memory polymer screw © Smith & Nephew

14 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 15 Innovation in market demands

The Great Recovery project aims to investigate the role of designers in a ‘circular economy’ where all products are designed for end-of-life disassembly and materials reuse

6. Innovation in market demands

Innovation in materials is driven Circular argument: closed-loop by, and has impact on, broader recycling economic and social trends, and Sophie Thomas, co-director of topics touching on some of these design at the Royal Society of Arts, aspects were highlighted in a brief outlined the Great Recovery project panel discussion at the end of the which aims to investigate the role Royal Academy of Engineering of designers in a ‘circular economy’ conference. The following section where all products are designed for summarises some of the issues and end-of-life disassembly and materials reuse. Design, she said, was where ideas put forward. 80 % of environmental cost was built into products, and many were designed for manufacture but not for disassembly or remanufacture. The project aims to map a circular network where product designers assume recovery rather than scrapping at The Great Recovery Project’s Circular Economy uses new design networks to the end of a project’s life and who reduce waste. It explores how we should design products to eliminate waste. therefore design for materials reuse. Creating products that work in a circular economy means avoiding products that use processes, composites or combine metals in ways that cannot be disassembled. With its expertise in design and manufacturing, the UK is well See diagram opposite. placed to create these cyclical systems © Useful Simple Projects

16 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 17 Public and private: funding material that the new idea works and is research reliable and comes at the right price,” 7. Further information he said. Potential users needed the Advanced materials represent one of reassurance that test methods and the Great Eight Technologies that are the application of international seen as central to the UK government standards could provide, and and the European Union research innovators would be wise to engage 1. Signature Materials strategies, said Dr Robert Quarshie, with the standards process early in www.signaturematerials.com director of the Materials Knowledge the development cycle. Transfer Network. Some of the aims 2. IOM3 calls time on metal theft of publicly funded research in this www.iom3.org/news/iom3-call-time-metal-theft area included technology transfer Materials business: commercialising between different applications and innovation 3. Signature Materials in Northampton addressing issues in stimulating www.iom3.org/news/signature-materials-northampton private and corporate investment. Richard Palmer, the founder of D3O As in other technology sectors, Labs and developer of D3O ‘intelligent’ 4. Signature Materials surges forward there is a potential research funding elastomeric material where the www.iom3.org/news/sigmat-electricitynorthwest gap between the proof of concept molecules lock together to absorb and the pre-production phase impact, advised would-be material 5. Eight Great Technologies that government agencies and innovators not to rely on just the www.policyexchange.org.uk/publications/category/item/eight- industry aim to bridge through the measured, scientific approach in great-technologies new Catapult centres and other taking ideas to market. The ingredient mechanisms, such as the Innovation that had led to his eventual success 6. Access to funding information and Knowledge Centres co-funded by was not measurement: “It’s about www.materialsktn.net EPSRC and the Technology Strategy belief, and the right people who share Board. it,” he said. His material, a “dilatant 7. European funding opportunities polymer” used in outdoor clothing to ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/news/horizon-2020- be soft but protective, had failed to launched-€15-billion-over-first-two-years Evolving standards: measuring convince 300 potential investors in materials performance 18 months until he found financial backers who shared his belief in the Industries that fail to innovate product. He also found Spyder, a ski are likely to disappear, said Dr Ben brand company that was prepared to Sheridan, sector development test the material on Olympic athletes, manager for high value not just in the lab. The results were manufacturing within British very positive, and once the athletes Standards Instition. Dr Sheridan believed in it, then everything warned that material innovators really took off. He is now selling in needed to take account of the needs 50 countries worldwide, has both of the product designers who they manufacturers and retailers as his hope will use their innovations: business partners, and the business “Product designers will want evidence continues to grow.

It’s about belief, and the right people who share it

18 Royal Academy of Engineering Innovation in materials 19 © EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing

8. Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Professor Bill O’Neill following speakers for their Professor of Laser Engineering contribution to Innovation in University of Cambridge materials: Richard Palmer Founder Chair D3O Labs

Sir John Parker GBE FREng Dr Robert Quarshie President Director Royal Academy of Engineering Materials KTN

Dr Bernie Rickinson Speakers Chief Executive Institute of Materials, Minerals and Dr Tom Ellis Mining Lead Researcher EPSRC Centre for Synthetic Biology Dr Ben Sheridan and Innovation Market Development Manager – High Imperial College London Value Manufacturing BSI Group David Farrar Science Manager – Biomaterials Professor Ravi Silva FREng Smith and Nephew Director of the Advanced Technology Institute Dr John Haddock University of Surrey Head of Materials Engineering Discipline Sophie Thomas BAE Systems Co-Director of Design RSA Dr Martin Kemp Chairman of IOM3 Nanomaterials Committee

Professor Mark Miodownik Professor of Materials and Society UCL

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