Our society is completely dependent upon polymers (plastics) in every facet of our lives; from clothes to computers to novel composites and cosmetics. But this brings problems. In 2010 every citizen of the USA discarded 140 kg of plastic into land-fill; and those figures are rising across the globe. As more of the World's economies move towards Western levels, we simply will not be able to continue to use polymers in the same way, nor will our oil reserves provide sufficient raw materials with security of supply. There are alternatives, derived from renewable resources, and these can also lead to degradable polymers that could have a significant positive impact and could help solve the issues of landfill. But despite all the hype and expectation, renewables currently account for less than 5% of all polymers. One of the major routes to achieving better market penetration of renewable polymers is to lower the price, and one of the biggest fixed costs is in the energy required to carry out the polymerisation reactions that make these polymers on the commercial scale. Our industry partners have told us clearly that lowering the energy costs and shaving off a just a few pence per kg of the overall cost of the polymer would have a dramatic effect on their ability to sell more renewable polymers into the marketplace. Our project addresses this issue directly and focuses on new energy efficient polymerisations. Our approach is novel, using high pressure carbon dioxide as a processing aid to enhance polymerisations at lower temperatures. If successful we will achieve not only significant energy savings, but also, by using lower temperatures, we will open up a completely new range of polymer properties, such as increased heat resistance and enhanced mechanical properties that have not been easily accessible before, and certainly cannot be achieved through the traditional high temperature commercial processes. This project will tackle both the technical and engineering aspects around the use of high pressure carbon dioxide in polymerisation reactions and will provide new approaches to overcoming the key hurdles that are currently preventing larger scale manufacture of renewable polymers. Our project will also produce valuable life cycle and energy consumption data on our new process. These data will be useful in helping our industry partners to build a credible business case for utilising high pressure carbon dioxide to improve their processes and polymer products.

Our society is completely dependent upon polymers (plastics) in every facet of our lives; from clothes to computers to novel composites, cars and cosmetics. A key question is how can we continue to use and consume polymers in the future? In 2010 every citizen of the USA discarded 140 kg of plastic into land-fill and those figures are similar and rising in many other societies around the globe. As more economies move towards Western levels of consumption, we simply will not be able to continue to use polymers in the same way. There are alternative polymers that are derived from renewable resources, and learning to make and use these will have a significant positive impact and will help to alleviate the issues of landfill, particularly when the renewable polymers are degradable. But despite all the hype and expectation, renewable polymers currently account for less than 5% of all polymers produced commercially. This figure is growing but the problem is that most renewable polymers simply do not perform as well as the traditional commodity polymers that are derived from oil. In this proposal we focus upon utilising terpenes to form a range of valuable new polymers. Terpenes are derived from citrus waste ( eg. d-limonene from orange peel) and from wood waste (eg. the alpha- and beta-pinenes) and are already available on the multi-tonne scale and sold into markets from fragrances to aromas and healthcare. There have been significant efforts in the past to create polymers directly from terpenes because their structures contain alkene moieties that appear to offer the opportunity for polymerisation via free radical routes under simple, readily accessible conditions that could easily be scaled. Unfortunately, extensive studies have yielded only poor quality low molecular weight or cross-linked polymers that have not found commercial utility. Now, we will build on recent proof of concept studies at Nottingham that could overcome this log-jam. We have developed a simple and versatile approach to produce new terpene based monomers that can be easily "dropped-in" to existing commercial polymerisation processes. Our approach offers the possibility to use readily available free radical and controlled polymerisation routes to create new polymers and co-polymers that can be tailored for application across the commodity and specialty plastics landscape. To achieve these goals we have assembled a multidisciplinary academic team that brings together all of the key skills and expertise needed to deliver these new monomers and polymers, and to characterise their properties to determine suitable application areas. In addition, we will utilise strong input, support and advice from industry partners from across the polymer sector to target the new materials towards focussed potential applications and products.

The manufacture of chemicals makes a major contribution to the UK's economy; £10 bn p.a. in the chemicals and £9bn in the pharmaceuticals sectors alone. The recent report of the Chemistry Growth Strategy Group states that 'By 2030, the UK chemical industry will have further reinforced its position as the country's leading manufacturing exporter and enabled the chemistry-using industries to increase their Gross Value Added contribution to the UK economy by 50%' with "smart manufacturing" as one of three priorities in realising their vision. Our proposal aims to contribute to this smart manufacturing by transforming the way in which continuous photochemistry can be applied to commercial chemical manufacture. There is considerable current academic interest in new photochemical reactions for organic synthesis but how they might be used industrially is usually ignored. Nevertheless the potential of photochemistry in manufacturing is widely recognized if only it could be made scalable and efficient. Traditionally the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industries have used batch reactors for manufacture, which are difficult to adapt effectively for photochemistry. Therefore, this proposal focuses on continuous reactors which not only permit innovation in design to overcome technical limitations of current photoreactors but also provide a direct route to increased throughput via scale up or scale out. We will tackle some of the technical and engineering issues inherent in conventional photoreactors. These engineering problems include getting light efficiently into the reactors, build-up of opaque material on transparent surfaces key safety issues, particularly in reactions involving oxidation, as well as cost issues related to low efficiency of many light sources and difficulties of scale up. Our project proposes to create new engineering approaches to continuous photochemical manufacture of chemicals, which could transform chemical processes and cost. Our proposal addresses key technical/scientific barriers frustrating current commercial use of photochemistry and promises cheaper products in the pharmaceutical, agrochemical and fine chemicals sectors. Our team consists of three investigators with a proven track record of taking chemical processes from laboratory to commercial plant. Between us, we have the expertise needed for success; namely, in photochemistry, continuous organic reactions, manufacturing, mechanical and chemical engineering and process monitoring.

Most chemical products are designed to have an effect, for example nutritional, hygiene, medical, disease and pest control, colouration, flavour, and preservation. Formulations are used to enhance and/or stabilise these desired effects and deliver the benefit at the point of use. The majority of formulated products in the Food, Home & Personal Care, Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, Agrochemicals, Fine Chemical, Catalysts, Coatings and Specialty Chemical sectors are Complex Particulate Products that contain solid or liquid particles (or droplets). Evidence for this is found in the breadth of companies supporting this CDT bid across these key economic sectors. The proposed CDT will train scientists and engineers capable of leading research teams for the development of new complex particulate products and the associated intensified processes (efficient, lean and agile) for their manufacture. The TSB high-value manufacturing strategy highlights the UK's need to apply 'leading-edge technical knowledge' to the 'creation of products' to underpin a technology-led economy where 'innovation in manufacturing' is a central theme. This demands a step-change in the current engineering skill-base, notably through promotion of more effective integration of research between scientists, engineers and product designers. Particle science and engineering underpins a wide-range of manufacturing sectors in the UK and across this space, there is a strong requirement for engineers and physical scientists who can iteratively translate novel materials discoveries through the design and development of scalable manufacturing processes, into innovative high-quality products (following for example a 6-sigma strategy). The shortage of highly trained researchers to support novel and sustainable manufacturing approaches in this area is a current risk for major UK based manufacturing companies as well as SMEs. Current academic training is largely analytical and focuses on materials discovery (new molecules, new materials), or on product formulation issues (physical/chemical stability, product effect), or on manufacturing and processing (scale up, unit operation, design and development of chemical and biochemical processes). There is generally little integration from materials to products with all the various processing stages needed, across the research, development and manufacturing supply chain. The efficient delivery of novel high-quality complex formulated products into the market requires a shared understanding of the challenges and limitations between researchers and practitioners working at all aspects of the product design and manufacture. This CDT will challenge the current culture of more tightly focussed research by providing comprehensive training for all students across the relevant domain space with a stroing focus on teamwork at all stages including during the PhD research phase. For the students the Centre will provide a unique training environment, combining innovative industry relevant training with world-class research supervision in a problem-led educational environment. Ultimately the combination of skills provided by the Centre will contribute strongly to the development of new research leaders in this field for both industry and academia.

Sustainability is the crucial factor in the future of the UK's chemistry-using industries with all companies sharing the vision of lower carbon footprints and reduced use of precious resources. However this sustainability can only be achieved if industry can recruit the right people. This CDT addresses the shortage of PhD graduates who have the skills needed to implement sustainable technologies. We will provide co-ordinated interdisciplinary training to produce a new generation of innovative PhD scientists and engineers with the skills needed by industry. Using the strong collaboration between Chemistry and Engineering at Nottingham as a springboard, we will launch a much wider integrated partnership involving chemistry, engineering, food science, and business to create more sustainable processes and compounds for the chemistry-using industries. This approach is strongly endorsed by our industrial partnerships, developed over many years, including companies from the major chemistry-using sectors. The demand for chemistry knowledge, skills, technologies and training will grow dramatically in the period 2015-2030 to meet the global challenges of healthcare and better medicines for an ageing population, safer agrochemicals to aid food production for an increasing population, and the need for ever smarter advanced materials for new and energy efficient technologies. However, chemical manufacturing is demanding in terms of use of energy and natural resources, as well as its impact on the environment, and consumes far more resource than is sustainable. Hence there is a need to develop new chemical and manufacturing solutions that are safe, efficient and, above all, sustainable. Sustainability is the issue facing the entire global chemicals industry, and our vision is to train a new generation of scientists to find innovative "green" resource and energy efficient solutions that have the lowest possible environmental impact, demonstrate social responsibility, and make a positive contribution to economic growth. Our proposed EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Sustainable Chemistry at Nottingham, will be highly interdisciplinary. It will not only capitalise on the strong links between Chemistry and Engineering, but will also reach into the Biosciences, Food Science and the Business School. The CDT builds upon our international track record in green chemistry, and will develop Nottingham's unique combination of skills and technologies in synthetic methodology, green chemistry, materials science, biotransformations, microwave technologies, food science, supply chains and business development, combined with high level commercial input through our very significant industrial involvement. Our CDT will provide world class training and our PhD graduates will have a full understanding of the sustainability impact of their work, with consideration for its wider environmental, societal and economic benefits. Our training framework, will produce "industry ready" PhDs who will have an excellent understanding of sustainability for the chemicals sector. These industries are well aware of the major issues, and they need new solutions and a new generation of trained researcher to deliver those solutions. By engaging with industry from an early stage, the CDT will deliver PhD training that addresses these concerns. The CDT will be based in an iconic new building, the UK's first Carbon Neutral Laboratory. This unique facility will provide a sustainable and energy efficient working environment that we hope will help inspire, motivate and ultimately deliver PhD graduates with a much better set of skills to minimise environmental impact and build sustainability into their work. The CDT will also serve as a global hub to visiting researchers wishing to develop expertise in sustainable chemistry, and to engage the public through Nottingham's unrivalled outreach activities such as the The Periodic Table of Videos.