We propose to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 between humans by development of antiviral formulated products. It will be delivered via additives in domestic formulated products, e.g. spray or aerosol, or integrated with current manufacturing processes, forming an invisible and long-lasting film of sub-micron thickness. Unlike disinfectants, formulations will be designed to both capture the aerosol droplets and inactivate the virus. Our first priority is to establish a mechanistic understanding of the interactions between aerosol droplets (or pure virus particles) and surfaces, which will inform possible antiviral mechanisms while providing a set of fundamental and coherent design principles for antiviral surfaces. Two technology platforms will be pursued to leverage the expertise and capability of our industrial partners. Polymer additives with controlled chemistry and molecular architecture will be explored to generate molecular films that facilitate disruption of aerosolised droplets and which may rupture the viral envelope or interfere adversely with key viral proteins and or genetic material. Proposed nanocellulose additives will confer additional benefits in terms of providing a porous structure designed to wick and absorb any protective mucus present. In parallel, hybrid polymer technology will be developed, employing reactive oxygen-producing copper nanoparticles coupled with flavin dyes that produce singlet oxygen species known to deactivate viruses when irradiated with light of the appropriate wavelength. Upon satisfactory antiviral testing results, promising design/formulation will be recommended based on their processability, suitability for end-applications, and environmental impact. Industrial partners with substantial experience in formulation will carry out pilot-scale production and full- scale manufacturing subsequently.

This project is centred on the development of the materials, device structures, materials processing and PV-panel engineering of excitonic solar cells (ESCs). These have the potential to greatly reduce both materials and also manufacturing costs where the materials, such as organic semiconductors, dyes and metal oxides, can be processed onto low-cost flexible substrates at ambient temperature through direct printing techniques. A major cost reduction is expected to lie in much-reduced capital investment in large scale manufacturing plant in comparison with conventional high vacuum, high temperatures semiconductor processing. There are extensive research programs in the UK and India developing these devices with the objective of the increase in PV efficiency through improved understanding of the fundamental processes occurring in these optoelectronic composites. However, there has been less activity in the UK and India on establishing from this science base a scalable, commercially viable processing protocol for excitonic solar cells. The scope of this UK-India call enables research and development to be undertaken which can pull together the set of activities to enable manufacturing application, and this extends beyond the usual scope of funding schemes accessible to the investigators. This project tackles the challenge to create cost-effective excitonic solar cells through three components: new material synthesis of lower cost materials; processing and development of device (nano)architectures compatible with low process costs; and the scale up towards prototypes which can replicate solar cell performance achieved in the research phase. The team includes leading scientists in the UK and India working on excitonic solar cells. Skills range from material synthesis and processing, device fabrication and modelling, wet processing of large area thin films, and PV panel manufacture and testing. Careful consideration has been made to match and complement the skills on both sides of the UK-India network. Further to this, engagement with industrial partners in both the UK and India will allow access to new materials, substrates etc., and access to trials and testing of demonstration PV panels in the field.

In the context of increasing energy demand, thin film PV technologies contribute in reducing CO2 emission. Current PV technologies are suffering from several issues: 1 – the outsourcing of PV modules outside Europe, 2 – the large distance between consumption points and generating power plants and 3 – the use of agricultural fields by solar power plant. In this context, building applied photovoltaic (BAPV) approach can face these issues by bringing functionalization to facades or roofs with a small constraint on the building. BOOSTER project targets at deploying the OPV technology to the BAPV market. OPV is a technology that addresses the problematic of world energy production with an eco-responsible approach. Manufacturing OPV modules via printing techniques features a low energy-payback-time and uses resources that are abundant, easily accessible and non toxic. Additionally, OPV demonstrates properties (flexibility, lightweight) that make it easily suitable for BAPV. Recently, technology benefited from a rapid progress of performances with development of advanced materials. The project BOOSTER aims at bringing the OPV technology to a TRL 7 by increasing efficiency, lifetime together with optimizing costs and lowering carbon footprint. Two demonstrators will be installed to illustrated BAPV concepts: a “ready to stick module” and a textile integrated product. BOOSTER will provide an efficient multi-layer OPV architecture demonstrating efficiency up to 15 %. Advanced multifunctional barrier films will be manufactured to increase the lifetime to 35 years. With a large-scale production approach, efforts will be placed on scaling up all the materials and optimization of the R2R manufacturing line to coat all the layers with minimization of performance loss while targeting drastic cost reduction. BOOSTER BAPV products will be integrated in two different locations (FAU in Germany, ENI in Italy), where real-life efficiency will be studied during last year of the project.

This project is centred on the development of the materials, device structures, materials processing and PV-panel engineering of excitonic solar cells (ESCs). These have the potential to greatly reduce both materials and also manufacturing costs where the materials, such as organic semiconductors, dyes and metal oxides, can be processed onto low-cost flexible substrates at ambient temperature through direct printing techniques. A major cost reduction is expected to lie in much-reduced capital investment in large scale manufacturing plant in comparison with conventional high vacuum, high temperatures semiconductor processing. There are extensive research programs in the UK and India developing these devices with the objective of the increase in PV efficiency through improved understanding of the fundamental processes occurring in these optoelectronic composites. However, there has been less activity in the UK and India on establishing from this science base a scalable, commercially viable processing protocol for excitonic solar cells. The scope of this UK-India call enables research and development to be undertaken which can pull together the set of activities to enable manufacturing application, and this extends beyond the usual scope of funding schemes accessible to the investigators. This project tackles the challenge to create cost-effective excitonic solar cells through three components: new material synthesis of lower cost materials; processing and development of device (nano)architectures compatible with low process costs; and the scale up towards prototypes which can replicate solar cell performance achieved in the research phase. The team includes leading scientists in the UK and India working on excitonic solar cells. Skills range from material synthesis and processing, device fabrication and modelling, wet processing of large area thin films, and PV panel manufacture and testing. Careful consideration has been made to match and complement the skills on both sides of the UK-India network. Further to this, engagement with industrial partners in both the UK and India will allow access to new materials, substrates etc., and access to trials and testing of demonstration PV panels in the field.

There is an urgent need to devise processes for recycling plastics, with an estimated total of 8300 million metric tonnes of plastics produced to date, of which less than 10% have been recycled overall. The end fate of polymers can include landfill, burning which contributes to CO2 production, global warming, and discarding into the environment, including rivers and oceans. Of the materials which are recycled, mechanical or thermal recycling techniques typically produce a lower grade of polymer which can be used in applications such as clothing, insulation, garden and road furniture for example, and also has inferior properties (e.g. colour and mechanical specification) and value compared with virgin polymers. PET is selected as the principal polymer for depolymerisation studies in this proposal, owing to it being widely used, with typical applications in clothing, bottles and packaging. The world demand for PET resin is ~23.5 million tonnes and production capacity ~30.3 million tonnes, whilst only 30 % (US) - 52 %(EU) is currently recycled. However used PET bottles are priced £222.50/tonne whilst virgin PET resin is priced £1084/tonne, making a strong economic case for chemical recycling to produce the virgin polymer, rather than mechanical or thermal recycling to a lower grade product. Chemical recycling of PET can be achieved via methods such as alcoholysis, aminolysis, ammonolysis and glycolysis, including via catalytic methods such as ionic organocatalysts. Some drawbacks of currently available recycling methods such as glycolysis involve the separation and eradication of contaminants such as catalyst residue and dyes from the product, difficulty of separating the project BHET from the reaction mixture in case it repolymerises during vacuum distillation and requirement for high purity PET feed to make high grade recycled products. This proposal aims to address these drawbacks by developing a scalable, continuous process for PET depolymerisation. In particular we aim to study the effect of polymer additives and food contaminants in real wastes upon the depolymerisation, to understand how the catalyst/process can be made resilient to these issues. Key considerations will be to fully understand reaction kinetics, enabling catalyst immobilisation to enable recycling of it and developing strategies for product recovery. The proposed technologies are expected to deliver potential benefits including reduced reliance on fossil derived virgin plastics, potential to increase the market for chemically recycled polymers, and deliver of a scalable process. We have engaged Project Partners from across the recycling, polymer production and academic sectors including Suez, Avantium, Dupont Teijin Films, Process Systems Enterprise and University of Liverpool. They will provide or advise on samples for depolymerisation, catalyst supports, provide technical consultation on the work plan and advise on routes to commercialisation and impact delivery as outlined in their letters of support.