In 2010 an international roundtable discussion, entitled " The Plus or Minus Debate", was held between 600 conservators, scientists and collections care professionals to explore and re-evaluate the environmental guidelines, advances in environmental research and the implications for collections, archives and libraries. The impetus for this meeting was the realisation that efficient environmental control has become essential in the light of the future energy crisis, the worldwide economic downturn, and a rising awareness of green technology. For over four decades the environmental guidelines for museums and institutions have been defined within narrow parameters. Conditions for multi-layer painted wooden objects in particular are amongst the most tightly controlled. We have empirical evidence (warping and splitting wood, cracking and delamination of paint) that these objects are vulnerable to continual environmental changes mainly because of the hydroscopic response of wood. However, we have yet to establish a correlation between environmental changes, the variations in the original preparation layers and the resulting different crack patterns or delamination at particular interfaces. Nor do we have sufficient data to reliably use crack patterns as indicators of particular mechanical failures within the structure. This project aims to highlight the mechanisms which lead to initiation and propagation of cracks as a result of environmental conditions in painted wooden cultural heritage, and how these eventually lead to delamination of the painted surface or underlying layers. This damage can lead to loss of the image or motif, resulting in changes to the aesthetic of the work, change in meaning and appreciation of the viewer. Compositional differences in the preparation and paint layers mean that the possible interfaces at which cracks can initiate are considerable. In the past it was assumed that if the environmental conditions do not cause deformation of the object beyond its ultimate tensile strain then no permanent damage will occur. However, fatigue is a possible long term problem where objects are continuously subjected to small environmental changes even within a limited range of temperature and relative humidity. It is therefore timely to undertake research to understand under what conditions environmentally induced fatigue could lead to delamination of painted surfaces in wooden objects. The methodology will be established considering multiple paint systems on wood. These systems are also found on polychrome sculpture, painted musical instruments, ethnographic objects and contemporary art. This will be achieved by an interdisciplinary project which will include determining the history of cyclic strain based on moisture and thermal deformation and the induced failure in different layers. The temperature, moisture and strain rate dependent (viscoelastic) properties of the constituent materials of the objects make this research a particular challenge both for the modelling and experimental testing. Published data and data collected from specific collections of environmental fluctuations, plus measured deformations of panel paintings, will be used as parameters for experimental fatigue testing. This simulates real fluctuating conditions but at a higher frequency: to a first approximation, this is equivalent to the induced deformations caused over hundreds of years of environmental changes. These results will be used to validate the modelling. Finally, accurate predictions for the lifetime of the painted panels will be made and compared to the Bizot (a group of the world's leading museums) 2015 guidelines for environmental control to ascertain what effects they might have on the condition of these objects. The research will provide experimental and simulation data of fatigue lifetimes for panel paintings and related cultural heritage that can be used to inform strategies for environmental control and collections care.

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.

In the UK there are more than four billion square metres of roofs and facades forming the building envelope. Most of this could potentially be used for harvesting solar energy and yet it covers less than 1.8 % of the UK land area. The shared vision for SPECIFIC is develop affordable large area solar collectors which can replace standard roofs and generate over one third of the UK's total target renewable energy by 2020 (10.8 GW peak and 19 TWh) reducing CO2 output by 6 million tonnes per year. This will be achieved with an annual production of 20 million m2 by 2020 equating to less than 0.5% of the available roof and wall area. SPECIFIC will realise this by quickly developing practical functional coated materials on metals and glass that can be manufactured by industry in large volumes to produce, store and release energy at point of use. These products will be suitable for fitting on both new and existing buildings which is important since 50% of the UKs current CO2 emissions come from the built environment.The key focus for SPECIFIC will be to accelerate the commercialisation of IP, knowledge and expertise held between the University partners (Swansea, ICL, Bath, Glyndwr, and Bangor) and UK based industry in three key areas of electricity generation from solar energy (photovoltaics), heat generation (solar thermal) and storage/controlled release. The combination of functionality will be achieved through applying functional coatings to metal and glass surfaces. Critical to this success is the active involvement in the Centre of the steel giant Corus/Tata and the glass manufacturer Pilkington. These two materials dominate the facings of the building stock and are surfaces which can be engineered. In addition major chemical companies (BASF and Akzo Nobel as two examples) and specialist suppliers to the emerging PV industry (e.g. Dyesol) are involved in the project giving it both academic depth and industrial relevance. To maximise open innovation colleagues from industry will be based SPECIFIC some permanently and some part time. SPECIFIC Technologists will also have secondments to partner University and Industry research and development facilities.SPECIFIC will combine three thriving research groups at Swansea with an equipment armoury of some 3.9m into one shared facility. SPECIFIC has also been supported with an equipment grant of 1.2 million from the Welsh Assembly Government. This will be used to build a dedicated modular roll to roll coating facility with a variety of coating and curing functions which can be used to scale up and trial successful technology at the pre-industrial scale. This facility will be run and operated by three experienced line technicians on secondment from industry. The modular coating line compliments equipment at Glyndwr for scaling up conducting oxide deposition, at CPi for barrier film development and at Pilkington for continuous application of materials to float glass giving the grouping unrivalled capability in functional coating. SPECIFIC is a unique business opportunity bridging a technology gap, delivering affordable novel macro-scale micro-generation, making a major contribution to UK renewable energy targets and creating a new export opportunity for off grid power in the developing world. It will ultimately generate thousands high technology jobs within a green manufacturing sector, creating a sustainable international centre of excellence in functional coatings where multi-sector applications are developed for next generation manufacturing.

Biofilms are microbial cells embedded within a self-secreted extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) matrix which adhere to substrates. Biofilms are central to some of the most urgent global challenges across diverse fields of application, from medicine to industry to the environment and exert considerable economic and social impact. For example, catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) in hospitals has been estimated to cause additional health-care costs of £1-2.5 billion in the United Kingdom alone (Ramstedt et al, Macromolec. Biosci. 19, 2019) and to cause over 2000 deaths per year (Feneley et al, J. Med. Eng. Technol. 39, 2015). To combat biofilm growth on surfaces, chemical-based approaches using immobilization of antimicrobial agents (i.e. antibiotics, silver particles) can trigger antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but are often not sustainable. Alternatively, bio-inspired nanostructured surfaces (e.g. cicada wing, lotus leaf) can be used, but their effects often may not last. A recent innovation in creating slippery surfaces has been inspired by the slippery surface strategy of the carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plant. These slippery surfaces involve the impregnation of a porous or textured solid surface with a liquid lubricant locked-in to the structure. Such liquid surfaces have been shown to have promise as antifouling surfaces by inhibiting the direct access to the solid surface for biofilm attachment, adhesion and growth. However, the antibiofilm performance of these new liquid surfaces under flow conditions remains a concern due to flow-induced depletion of lubricant. Here we propose a novel anti-biofilm surface by creating permanently bound slippery liquid-like solid surfaces. Success would transform our understanding about bacteria living on surfaces and open-up new design paradigms for the development of next generation antibiofilm surfaces for a wide range of applications (e.g. biomedical devices and ship hulls). To enable the successful delivery of this project, it requires us to combine cross-disciplinary skills ranging from materials chemistry, physical and chemical characterisations of materials surfaces, nanomechanics, microbiology, biomechanics, to computational mechanics. The project objectives well align with EPSRC Healthcare Technologies Grand Challenges, addressing the topics of controlling the amount of physical intervention required, optimizing treatment, and transforming community health and care. In parallel, we shall contribute to the advancement of Cross-Cutting Research Capabilities (e.g. advanced materials, future manufacturing technologies and sustainable design of medical devices) that are essential for delivering these Grand Challenges. In particular, this research will employ nanomechanical tests to determine bacteria adhesion and microfluidics techniques for biofilm characterisation, which enables us to create novel approaches in computational engineering through the formulation and validation of sophisticated numerical models of bacteria attachment and biofilm mechanics.

The proposal seeks funds to renew and refresh the Centre for Doctoral Training in Formulation Engineering based in Chemical Engineering at Birmingham. The Centre was first funded by EPSRC in 2001, and was renewed in 2008. In 2011, on its 10th anniversary, the Centre received one of the Diamond Jubilee Queen's Anniversary Prizes, for 'new technologies and leadership in formulation engineering in support of UK manufacturing'. The scheme is an Engineeering Doctoral Centre; students are embedded in their sponsoring company and carry out industry-focused research. Formulation Engineering is the study of the manufacture of products that are structured at the micro-scale, and whose properties depend on this structure. In this it differs from conventional chemical engineering. Examples include foods, home and personal care products, catalysts, ceramics and agrichemicals. In all of these material formulation and microstructure control the physical and chemical properties that are essential to its function. The structure determines how molecules are delivered or perceived - for example, in foods delivery is of flavour molecules to the mouth and nose, and of nutritional benefit to the GI tract, whilst in home and personal care delivery is to skin or to clothes to be cleaned, and in catalysis it is delivery of molecules to and from the active site. Different industry sectors are thus underpinned by the same engineering science. We have built partnerships with a series of companies each of whom is world-class in its own field, such as P&G, Kraft/Mondelez, Unilever, Johnson Matthey, Imerys, Pepsico and Rolls Royce, each of which has written letters of support that confirm the value of the programme and that they will continue to support the EngD. Research Engineers work within their sponsoring companies and return to the University for training courses that develop the concepts of formulation engineering as well as teaching personal and management skills; a three day conference is held every year at which staff from the different companies interact and hear presentations on all of the projects. Outputs from the Centre have been published in high-impact journals and conferences, IP agreements are in place with each sponsoring company to ensure both commercial confidentiality and that key aspects of the work are published. Currently there are 50 ongoing projects, and of the Centre's graduates, all are employed and more than 85% have found employment in formulation companies. EPSRC funds are requested to support 8 projects/year for 5 years, together with the salary of the Deputy Director who works to link the University, the sponsors and the researchers and is critical to ensure that the projects run efficiently and the cohorts interact well. Two projects/year will be funded by the University (which will also support a lecturer, total >£1 million over the life of the programme) and through other sources such as the 1851 Exhibition fund, which is currently funding 3 projects. EPSRC funding will leverage at least £3 million of direct industry contributions and £8 million of in-kind support, as noted in the supporting letters. EPSRC funding of £4,155,480 will enable a programme with total costs of more than £17 million to operate, an EPSRC contribution of 24% to the whole programme.