Twelve new research and development projects that will lead to the more efficient and sustainable use of resources are to share £4.5 million government support through the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the UK’s national innovation agency with a goal to accelerate economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation.
TSB writes:
The funding, from the government-backed Technology Strategy Board will see industrial end-users working with their supply chains and with innovators to create sustainable new technologies, products and processes that reduce the global environmental impact of the materials we use, while also reducing our dependence on key raw materials.
David Bott, Director of Innovation Programmes at the Technology Strategy Board, said: ‘More and more UK businesses recognise that if we are to be competitive and prosperous in a resource-efficient, low carbon economy, we need to develop products and processes that make better use of natural resources, generate less waste and have reduced impact on the environment. Also many key enabling technologies for a sustainable economy rely on a relatively small number of high-tech materials which may become difficult to source in the future.’
The innovations developed through these projects will show how greater resource efficiency benefits can be realised, and will help the UK to tap into the growing global market opportunity for technologies, products and processes that make better use of material resources.
The companies leading the research and development projects are: Augean plc (Walton, West Yorkshire), Gwent Electronic Materials (Pontypool), Innoval Technology Ltd (Banbury), Jaguar Cars Ltd (Coventry), Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells Ltd (Swindon), Liberty Electric Cars Ltd (Coventry), Marshalls Mono Ltd (Elland, West Yorkshire), Morganite Electrical Carbon Ltd (Swansea), M-Solv LTD (Kidlington, Oxfordshire), SABIC UK Petrochemicals Ltd (Redcar) and Unilever UK (Bebington, 2 projects) .
Examples of the collaborative R&D projects to be undertaken following these grant funding awards include:
– The development of concrete products made without Portland cement;
– Research into the recovery and re-use of high value materials from fuel cell electrode assemblies;
– Substitution of silver in electronic conductive inks;
– The development of commercially-viable recycling of waste plastics into naphtha substitute for the petrochemicals industry;
– The development of UK sustainable supply of high purity graphite.
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