Pyrolysis is known for yielding condensable volatile organic vapours of varying chain length and complexity depending on process configuration and operating conditions. Although the process has been known for decades, significant challenges need to be addressed in order to deploy economic commercial systems. Given that plastics are manufactured from fossil feedstock, the properties of the pyrolysis liquids are expected to be similar to those of conventional chemicals and fuels. However, the wide range of non-standardised mixed waste plastics and presence of organic additives enhance secondary reactions during thermal conversion processes. While these issues need to be addressed in conventional processes of valorisation of plastics, more uncertainties and challenges are encountered in the case of advanced thermal conversion of plastics recovered through landfill mining because the presence of contaminants and chemical degradation result in more variability of the composition.

Low weight, low cost PPE which also provides the appropriate levels of protection has been the driving force of research in this area for decades. This project will look at solutions that provide the level of protection but also takes in account, new materials, green technologies and investment in local economies.

Water biostability refers to the inability of water to support microbial growth and depends on the availability of the organic matter fraction which is assimilable by microorganisms. Water biostability is critical when residence time in pipelines or water storage is long, and it is affected by treatment efficiency and changing water quality in the catchment. Moreover, the role that treatment processes, centralised or decentralised, have on the biostability of water over long residence time has not been fully characterised yet. The scope of this investigation is to establish the factors during treatment affecting water biostability, how they can be mitigated and their impact downstream over long residence times.

With the rapid development and imminent deployment of tidal and wave devices and the expansion of offshore wind power there is a pressing need to understand how marine wildlife is going to be affected by these developments. Existing regulations and mitigation measures are based on assumed effects. Lack of information means that the regulations may be either too onerous and recommended mitigation measures may be unnecessary or ineffective. There is a clear need to improve our understanding of how animals perceive and respond to devices and how these responses affect their behaviour, distribution and ultimately fitness. The RESPONSE project is a multi-disciplinary study focussing on causal links between marine renewable devices (MRD) and changes in the fine-scale distribution and behaviour of marine vertebrates. The overall aim of the project is to identify and quantify actual risk of negative consequences and therefore remove one key layer of uncertainty in the scale of risk to the industry and natural environment. The main objectives are to: 1. understand how stakeholders see the risks to the industry and to the environment. 2. measure the fine scale distribution of marine wildlife in high tidal and wave energy sites to understand how seals, cetaceans, birds and large fish use such areas. 3. characterise acoustic, visual and electromagnetic signals that MRDs produce and assess the reactions of marine wildlife to those cues. 4. use the results in habitat preference models to infer zones of influence and avoidance associated with MRDs at both small and large scales. 5. develop effective mitigation methods We will achieve these objectives through a set of inter-related sub projects that will:- 1. bring together a UK wide group of regulators, conservation groups and industry to assess the perception of risk to the industry and environment posed by negative interactions with marine wildlife. 2. use novel, high resolution GPS transmitters for seals and state of the art passive acoustics, active sonar and visual observation techniques for porpoises, seabirds and fish to record details of their habitat use and behaviour in and around operational wave and tidal test sites and an un-developed high energy tide site. These studies will be co-ordinated with FLOWBEC, another NERC/Defra funded project monitoring the physical characteristics of the marine environment at these high energy sites 3. carryout a programme of physical measurements to characterise the outputs of MRDs that have a potential to cause disturbance to marine wildlife. 4. carry out a series of controlled exposure/behaviour response trials with captive seals and with wild free ranging seals and porpoises. 5. use visual and acoustic observation data and the operating schedules of existing MRDs to assess the responses of seabirds to MRD operations. The results of 1 to 5 will be used to describe the effects of MRDs on individual animals over the short term, i.e. how they react to the stimuli, and over the medium to long term, i.e. how they change their movements and behaviour in response to exposure to the stimuli. These results will be used as direct input to the EBAO project, another NERC/Defra funded project modeling the potential impacts of large scale arrays of MRDs. This project will provide a step change in knowledge about the existence and importance of adverse effects of MRDs and provide an ability to predict impacts of

This project will contribute to one of the UK's major societal challenges, namely the energy trilemma: to decarbonize the energy system, to improve energy security and to minimise the cost of energy to the consumer. Despite tidal energy being one of the most predictable and reliable source of renewable energy, the cost of the energy produced by tidal energy converters is still very high due to the high costs of the support structures utilised. In the present project a disruptive and novel platform configuration is proposed that differs from the other tidal device foundations by virtually eliminating any wet moving part, and therefore lowering the costs and increasing the reliability. It is also designed to avoid the need of costly and scarce specialized vessels for transport and installation. This novel foundation concept will revolutionise the current design philosophy, unlocking new design spaces and opportunities. The project will be conducted by an international team with renewable energy expertise. Utilising the simple, reliable tidal turbine designed and experimentally tested by Tidal Harness Ltd, Cranfield University will apply its track-record proven expertise in the design of offshore floating structures for the renewable energy industry to this innovative design. Tidal Harness Ltd and Cranfield University will be supported by very experienced partners in the renewable energy area: ORE Catapult, DNV-GL, and a strategic partner advising the consortium as regard the manufacturability aspects, Banah UK. The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult is the UK's flagship technology innovation and research centre for offshore wind, wave and tidal energy. Banah UK specialises in a revolutionary new low-carbon cement and will advise to all technical aspects related to methods of manufacturing reinforcement concrete structures. DNV-GL is the world's largest technical consultancy to the renewable energy industry.