UK and India are both rising stars in the promotion of Solar Energy viz. direct generation of electricity from the Sun called photovoltaics (PV). In the UK, PV is seen as a key technology to reduce the carbon footprint of electricity generation. It is also a necessity if future building standards are to be met, which will require on-site generation. PV is the only way to meet this to date. DECC has announced recently 'The Solar Strategy' which promotes the deployment of solar technologies on the existing buildings. In India PV has the added benefit that it is a highly scalable technology that can be deployed to support the grid infrastructure and indeed can be built possibly faster than conventional power plants through terrestrial solar farms and BIPV sectors. The current APEX program stems from the strategic move by the governments of the UK and India who jointly identified Solar Energy as an area of significance in providing solutions to the problem of meeting future energy needs. This partnership was aimed at linking the strengths of both countries to enhance the research capabilities of both nations. APEX had been focusing on the development of new functional materials, device structures, materials processing and engineering of photovoltaic modules utilising excitonic solar cells (ESCs). These are a class of nano-structured solar cells based on organic nano-composites and dye-sensitised nanocrystalline TiO2 materials. The current state-of-the-art power conversion efficiency (PCE) figures ~11.4% and ~9.2% has been achieved in liquid junction dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) and organic solar cells (OSC), respectively. In the pursuit of achieving high efficiency solid state DSSC, a new breakthrough has been established recently through our Oxford group (Prof. Henry Snaith) who achieved >17% efficient solid state devices using pervoskite solar cells. Thus, the APEX team enjoys the exceptional, world-class capability in Excitonic PV technology. The success of the program had been through its novelty, innovation and cutting edge R&D capability it possesses.

This user-need CDT will equip graduates with the skills needed by the UK formulation industry to manufacture the next generation of formulated products at net zero, addressing the decarbonisation needs for the sector and aligning with this EPSRC priority. Formulated products, including foods, battery electrodes, pharmaceuticals, paints, catalysts, structured ceramics, thin films and coatings, cosmetics, detergents and agrochemicals, are central to UK prosperity (sector size > £95bn GVA in 2021) and Formulation Engineering is concerned with the design and manufacture of these products whose effectiveness is determined by the microstructure of the material. Containing complex soft materials: structured solids, soft solids or structured liquids, whose nano- to micro-scale physical and chemical structures are highly process dependent and critical to product function, their manufacture poses common challenges across different industry sectors. Moving towards Net Zero manufacture thus needs systems thinking underpinned by interdisciplinary understanding of chemistry, processing and materials science pioneered by the CDT for Formulation Engineering at the University of Birmingham over the past twenty years, with a proven delivery of industrial impact evidenced by our partner's letters of support and three Impact Case Studies ranked at 4* in the recent Research Excellence Framework in 2021. A new CDT strategy has been co-created with our industry partners, where we address new user-led research challenges through our theme of Formulation for Net Zero ('FFN0), articulated in two research areas: 'Manufacturing Net Zero (MN0)', and 'Towards 4.0rmulation'. Formulation engineering is not taught in first degree courses, so training is needed to develop the future leaders in this area. This was the industry need that led to the creation of the CDT in Formulation Engineering, based within the School of Chemical Engineering at Birmingham. The CDT leads the field: we won for the University one of the 2011 Diamond Jubilee Queen's Anniversary Prizes, demonstrating the highest national excellence. The UK is a world-leader in Formulation; many multinational formulation companies base research and manufacture in the UK, and the supply of trained graduates, and open innovation research partnerships facilitated by the CDT are critical to their success. The CDT receives significant industry funding (>£650k pa), supported by 31 industry partners including multinationals: P&G, Colgate, Unilever, Diageo, Devro, Fonterra, Samworth Bros., Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Nestle, Pepsico, Mondelez, GSK, AZ, Lonza, Novartis, BMS, BASF, Celanese, Croda, Innospec, Linde/BOC, Origen, Imerys, Johnson Matthey, Rolls-Royce/HTRC, JLR Lucideon and SMEs: Aquapak, CALGAVIN and ITS/StreamSensing. Intra and cross cohort training is central to our strategy, through our taught programme and twice-yearly internal conferences, industry partner-led regional research meetings, student-led technical and soft skills workshops and social events and inter CDT meetings. We have embedded diversity and inclusion into all of our projects and processes, including blind CV recruitment. Since 2018 our cohorts have been > 50% female and >35% BAME. We will co-create training and research partnerships with other CDTs, Catapult Centres, and industry, and train at least 50 EngD and PhD graduates with the skills needed to enhance the UK's leading international position in this critical area. The taught programme delivers a common foundation in formulation engineering, specialist technical training, modules on business, entrepreneurship and soft skills including a course in Responsible Research in Formulation. We have obtained promises of significant industry and University funding, with 67 offers of projects already. EPSRC costs will be 44% of the cash total for the CDT, and ca. £27% of the whole cost when industry in-kind funding is included.

Chemical separations are critical to almost every aspect of our daily lives, from the energy we use to the medications we take, but consume 10-15% of the total energy used in the world. It has been estimated that highly selective membranes could make these separations 10-times more energy efficient and save 100 million tonnes/year of carbon dioxide emissions and £3.5 billion in energy costs annually (US DoE). More selective separation processes are essential to "maximise the advantages for UK industry from the global shift to clean growth", and will assist the move towards "low carbon technologies and the efficient use of resources" (HM Govt Clean Growth Strategy, 2017). In the healthcare sector there is growing concern over the cost of the latest pharmaceuticals, which are often biologicals, with an unmet need for highly selective separation of product-related impurities such as active from inactive viruses (HM Govt Industrial Strategy 2017). In the water sector, the challenges lie in the removal of ions and small molecules at very low concentrations, so-called micropollutants (Cave Review, 2008). Those developing sustainable approaches to chemicals manufacture require novel separation approaches to remove small amounts of potent inhibitors during feedstock preparation. Manufacturers of high-value products would benefit from higher recovery offered by more selective membranes. In all these instances, higher selectivity separation processes will provide a step-change in productivity, a critical need for the UK economy, as highlighted in the UK Government's Industrial Strategy and by our industrial partners. SynHiSel's vision is to create the high selectivity membranes needed to enable the adoption of a novel generation of emerging high-value/high-efficiency processes. Our ambition is to change the way the global community perceives performance, with a primary focus on improved selectivity and its process benefits - while maintaining gains already made in permeance and longevity.

This application requests funds to continue and develop the EngD in Formulation Engineering which has been supported by EPSRC since 2001. The EngD was developed in response to the needs of the modern process industries. Classical process engineering is concerned with processing materials, such as petrochemicals, which can be described in thermodynamic terms. However, modern process engineering is increasingly concerned with production of materials whose structure (micro- to nano- scale) and chemistry is complex and a function of the processing it has received. For optimal performance the process must be designed concurrently with the product, as to extract commercial value requires reliable and rapid scale-up. Examples include: foods, pharmaceuticals, paints, catalysts and fuel cell electrodes, structured ceramics, thin films, cosmetics, detergents and agrochemicals. In all of these, material formulation and microstructure controls the physical and chemical properties that are essential to its function. The Centre exploits the fact that the science within these industry sectors is common and built around designing processes to generate microstructure:(i) To optimise molecular delivery: for example, there is commonality between food, personal care and pharmaceuticals; in all of these sectors molecular delivery of actives is critical (in foods, to the stomach and GI tract, to the skin in personal care, throughout the body for the pharmaceutical industry);(ii) To control structure in-process: for example, fuel cell elements and catalysts require a structure which allows efficient passage of critical molecules over wide ranges of temperature and pressure; identical issues are faced in the manufacture of structured ceramics for investment casting;(iii) Using processes with appropriate scale and defined scale-up rules: the need is to create processes which can efficiently manufacture these products with minimal waste and changeover losses.The research issues that affect widely different industry sectors are thus the same: the need is to understand the processing that results in optimal nano- to microstructure and thus optimal effect. Products are either structured solids, soft solids or structured liquids, with properties that are highly process-dependent. To make these products efficiently requires combined understanding of their chemistry, processing and materials science. Research in this area has direct industrial benefits because of the sensitivity of the products to their processes of manufacture, and is of significant value to the UK as demonstrated by our current industry base, which includes a significant number of FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) companies in which product innovation is especially rapid and consumer focused. The need for, and the added value of, the EngD Centre is thus to bring together different industries and industry sectors to form a coherent underpinning research programme in Formulation Engineering. We have letters of support from 19 companies including (i) large companies who have already shown their support through multiple REs (including Unilever, P+G, Rolls Royce, Imerys, Johnson Matthey, Cadbury and Boots), (ii) companies new to the Centre who have been attracted by our research skills and industry base (including Bayer, Akzo Nobel, BASF, Fonterra (NZ), Bristol Myers Squibb and Pepsico).

cQD are attracting significant interest as the key components for next-generation smart displays/lightings, photo detectors and image sensors, and solar cells. This is because they show excellent and unique physical properties such as i) high sensitivity and quantum efficiency, ii) excellent colour gamut with narrow emission (absorption) bandwidths, iii) colour tunability/band gap engineering through size control, iv) high photostability and v) high air stability as they are based on inorganic materials. Therefore, since the latest results on cQD LEDs and image sensors/photodetector have demonstrated the possibility of integration of cQD optoelectronics with current semiconducting technologies, the pace of research in the cQD area has been accelerated dramatically and an increasing number of research groups and companies are currently active in this area worldwide. The investigators expect that cQD LED will replace current technologies through: (1) Superior reliability of the inorganic structure in an almost air barrier free architecture w.r.t OLED (WVTR of 10-6 g/m2/day), (2) Lower power consumption and low product cost, 60 and 50 % less than current OLED, respectively, and (3) Colour purity of 110% or greater compared to typically 80% for OLED. This project will address will enhance the current state of the art to achieve cost reduction through using continuous, as opposed batch, cQD synthesis, mono layer resin free processing, all inorganic interface materials such as ETL (electron transport layer) and HTL (hole transport layer), device integration and packaging for EL cQD LED, with Cd-free cQDs for smart lighting and displays. The project proposed builds upon research established in the investigators' groups in Cambridge and Oxford. We are well equipped with facilities for pilot fabrication using technologies which will underpin the commercialisation of cQD LED based lighting/displays. The final deliverable will be energy efficient 4" active devices with predictable life times, and sustainable high brightness for flexible smart lighting. The elements of the smart light which will include colour hue and brightness control based on active matrix switching of pixels will also be applicable to displays, but without the same high pixel definition. We shall explore the design and synthesis of Cd-free cQDs with the core/shell structures using continuous flow production methods which can then be incorporated into active devices. Key to successfully implementing devices are the scalable production of high quality cQDs with specific surface passivation and functionalisation which limit the effects of impurities and defects and produce high quality thin films with well understood interfaces. In this project we will use scalable production techniques that can be transferred to in-line process for mass production. We shall focus on the manufacturing and processing aspects to create mono layer-controlled cQD films with entire close-packed and almost void free structure using dry-transfer printing methods. This will enhance efficiency and reliability of film for the desired mode of devices. Interface control based on a monolayer level layer-by-layer transfer process will be employed in order to obtain highly uniform monolayers which can be expanded to multilayer stacked film processing including interface layers. The interface materials for emissive cQD film with inorganic HTL and ETL layer for EL devices will also be designed and fabricated at the device integration step (WP 2-3). Driving electronics using TFTs will be designed for reliable and stable operation. Industrial partners in the supply chain for smart flexible lighting production, are: CDT Ltd for materials, lighting, metrology; CPI Ltd, Dupont-Teijin Films UK for flexible films for lighting; Emberion UK, Dyson, FlexEnable, Samsung UK for device processing, and system integration; Aixtron UK for TCF; Nanoco and Merck as materials suppliers and EAB members.