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Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at www.rcuk.ac.uk/StudentshipTerminology. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

Metal thin films are used in a wide variety of technologies, such as solar cells and printed circuit boards for electronics. Inkjet printing has emerged as a practical and low-cost route for manufacturing electrical contacts in these applications. However existing manufacturing technologies use inks that often require a final heat treatment to consolidate or 'sinter' the film. If this last step can be eliminated, by depositing fully dense films, then the inkjet manufacturing process could be applied to temperature sensitive substrates like plastics or vulnerable semiconductor materials. The purpose of this project is to develop 'sinter-free' inkjet manufacturing processes, by taking ink precursors developed for other thin film processes, and exploiting them to use the significant benefits of inkjet process technology e.g. the direct writing of interconnects or wires. If successful, the project will represent a step-change in the manufacturing methods for this type of film.

There are a large number of biorefinery initiatives in Europe based on a range of different feedstocks including grass, cereals, legumes and sugar beet. Grass-based biorefinery initiatives are located in Ireland, Belgium, Austria, Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands. High-sugar perennial rye-grass has the potential to provide an ideal biorefinery feedstock for the production of bio-ethanol and bulk chemicals such as succinates and lactic acid, with other co-product streams such as biocomposite materials and animal feeds manufactured from the fibre fraction. This grass is high yielding (ca.15 tonne dry wt./hectare/year) and is ideally suited to the climatic and soil conditions experienced in the UK. It can grow on marginal land that will not support the growth of cereal crops and hence will not jeopardise future food supplies. It requires low annual inputs, especially when grown with clover as a source of nitrogen, and does not require investment in new equipment for sowing and harvesting. This feedstock is available now and is abundant throughout the UK. From a biorefining perspective, it is highly digestible (4-6% lignin) and has a high water soluble sugar content (up to 40%). It also has the benefit of storing its carbohydrate reserves in the form of the water-soluble sugar, fructan, rather than starch. Unlike starch, which requires treatments with heat, acids and a series of enzymes, for conversion to a fermentable sugar, fructan can be converted through the use of a single enzyme. A grass biorefinery based on ethanol and bulk chemicals as well as biocomposites production alone, however, is unlikely to be economically viable and it is necessary to produce additional high value chemicals from the fructan molecules isolated. This project involves a multidisciplinary team of scientists with complementary skills ranging from plant biology to biochemistry, chemistry and surface and colloid science. It sets out to utilise the diverse range of fructan molecules found in perrential ryegrass, as well as novel molecules created by the action of fructan hydrolysing enzymes on these fructans to produce novel high value chemicals. It will initially identify the optimum rye-grass feedstock for a biorefinery by screening a range of perennial ryegrasses developed at Aberystwyth University that will produce high yields of fructans with specific size and molecular architecture. Novel ultrasound technologies will be investigated to maximise the release of plant sugars from the rye-grass through mechanical rupture of cell walls and to assist in the removal of coloured impurities. The fructans will be separated into different classes according to their molecular size and will then be chemically modified to produce a range of high-value sugar-based polymer and surfactant molecules that can be used in the formulation of a broad range of commercial products including, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, personal care, coatings, etc.. Their role in these products is to aid the dispersion of particles, the emulsification of oils and in the control the rheological behaviour. The global demand for surfactants in 2000 was 19.2 million tonnes with carbohydrate based products accounting for 2.9 million tonnes. The demand for biosurfactants produced from renewable sources is likely to expand rapidly, with increasing pressure to reduce the reliance on petroleum derived products. The contribution of the value of the speciality chemicals produced during the course of the project will be assessed with regards to the economics of a total grass grass biorefinery.

Reducing the materials costs and improving efficiencies for solar cells is an ongoing research area that has global interest. Currently, crystalline silicon cells account for 90% of the PV market. Whilst conversion efficiency levels are considered high, the production costs for crystalline silicon are significantly higher than for thin film materials. However, the current conversion efficiency for thin film PV is significantly less than for crystalline silicon hence reducing some of the cost advantage. There is considerable scope for thin film solar cell development, where improvements in cell efficiency can be made with improved materials and device structures. One improvement that will lead to better conversion efficiency is to increase the photon absorption into the cell, close to the junction. A promising candidate for application as an absorbing layer in a photovoltaic device is iron pyrite (FeS2). The high absorption coefficient of FeS2 is consistent with its high density of states in the conduction band. The relatively small band gap allows for visible and infrared wavelengths to be absorbed, and the combination of direct and indirect band gap transitions contribute to its high absorption coefficient. However, this has not yet been turned into an efficient PV device. Iron pyrite has the potential to become a very important material for very large scale manufacture of thin film PV modules where the elemental constituents are very abundant and combines with the much smaller amounts of absorber material needed (thickness of 100 nm or less) making this a very sustainable and low cost material.This feasibility proposal will investigate the promising MOCVD route to deposit very thin films of FeS2 and introduce these into a novel p-i-n structure, taking advantage of the recent success with the MOCVD CdTe PV devices on the PV Supergen project. This structure will take advantage of the super-absorption characteristics to sandwich a very thin film absorber between n-type CdS and p-type CdTe:As layers. The purpose will be to show that high efficiency PV devices can be made from FeS2 where the photo-generated carriers are collected by drift in the electric field rather than by diffusion, thus reducing carrier loss. As part of the feasibility it is intended to scope future developments by replacing the CdS and CdTe n-type and p-type layers with more sustainable materials.