To embed metal 3D printing capabilities which will allow for the production of metal loaded 3D resins (inks) as the feedstock for metal 3D printers based on LCD screens.

The transition to clean energy and sustainable battery technologies is essential for achieving net-zero goals and securing the UK's position as a leader in next-generation energy storage solutions. A significant challenge in lithium-ion battery production is the reliance on toxic solvents such as NMP, which pose environmental, health, and economic concerns. Our project focuses on advancing solvent-free cathode manufacturing, providing a safer, more sustainable, and scalable alternative to conventional processes. The global demand for batteries is projected to increase over ~2.5 times by 2030, with nations investing heavily in gigafactories and supply chain expansion to meet this growing need. While China currently dominates battery production (~70% of the global market), Europe is rapidly increasing its capacity, and the UK is positioning itself for significant growth. The UK aims to scale up battery production to 110 GWh by 2030 and 200 GWh by 2040 based on projected demands, supporting electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. To achieve this, advancing greener technologies like solid-state and sodium-ion batteries, strengthening domestic supply chains, and reducing costs and emissions through innovations are top priorities. At the forefront of battery technology, Photocentric is pioneering cutting-edge solutions that revolutionise energy storage and manufacturing. Our proprietary photopolymer binder technology eliminates the need for hazardous solvents, replacing energy-intensive drying processes with an efficient Ultraviolet (UV) curing system. This breakthrough reduces energy consumption by at least 30% in cathode production and 10% across total battery manufacturing, delivering a cleaner and more cost-effective process. **Our Key Innovations** * Solvent-Free Cathode Manufacturing -- Our photopolymer system enables safer, more efficient cathode production, eliminating NMP-based solvents and reducing the environmental footprint. * Optimised Photopolymer Chemistry -- Designed to mix seamlessly with cathode materials, ensuring uniform dispersion and enhanced electrode performance. * Castable & Curable Slurry -- Achieves the ideal viscosity for easy processing, enabling smooth electrode casting and uniform curing. * Significant Energy Reduction -- Eliminates high-temperature drying, cutting manufacturing energy costs and improving efficiency. * Scalable & Sustainable -- A crucial step towards solvent-free, high-efficiency battery production that aligns with global sustainability targets. This groundbreaking approach paves the way for next-generation of solvent free cathode manufacturing for liquid and solid-state batteries, helping the UK establish a stronger foothold in the global battery industry. By accelerating the commercialisation of solvent-free manufacturing, we contribute to a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable battery ecosystem - critical for achieving the UK's net-zero ambitions.

While single-use (SU) systems offer flexibility and reduce the reliance on solvents and steam, they generate approximately 30,000 tonnes of plastic waste annually---a figure expected to double by 2026\. This significant environmental impact underscores the necessity for innovative solutions that maintain the benefits of SU systems while substantially reducing their carbon footprint. Project Nexus brings together expertise in advanced manufacturing automation, digital design and optimisation, material innovation and bioprocessing to pioneer the additive manufacturing (AM) of bioreactors at scale, offering a greener and more efficient alternative to SU bioreactors with improved circularity and end-of-life pathways, all while retaining the flexibility of disposable systems. Nexus will pioneer the design and manufacture of new bioreactors using AM and bio-based, eco-friendly materials. The bioreactors will be tested for applications in pharmaceuticals R&D and point-of-care manufacture as primary applications. We will also explore avenues for reusing them in industrial biotechnology, e.g. to produce green chemicals. The Nexus team will integrate a rigorous analysis of the technical, economic and environmental impact of the bioreactors, their manufacture and end-of-life disposal to demonstrate the benefits of a transition to AM.

In the LEAD (Low Energy Autonomous Digital) Factory project, a consortium of world-leading companies joined forces to innovate and develop a ground-breaking automation system. The process involves creating functional plastics from plant waste, converting them into usable, eco-friendly polymers. This clean, low-energy manufacturing process is entirely controlled digitally, minimizing harmful emissions and ensuring circularity through an innovative recovery process for end-of-life plastics. Building on the success of the LEAD Factory, the IntelliJeni project aims to revolutionize the way plastic parts are created by scaling up the automated concept machine for deployment. Jeni is a modular, turnkey automated 3D printing solution that increases productivity, resource and energy efficiency, and digital technology adoption while localizing manufacturing. By being a turnkey, modular, automated, and mobile system, Jeni significantly reduces the technical and cost barriers to entry for adopting 3D printing in mass production operations. This data-driven machine will standardize and automate the production of large volumes of polymer parts, utilizing machine learning for improved output and reliability. One of the key challenges and opportunities in scaling up additive manufacturing is that each part can be unique, requiring multiple iterations to optimize the production process, consuming time and material. By applying machine learning to the system, IntelliJeni will be able to suggest optimized production parameters based on input parts, learning from all previous iterations. Digital part creation has numerous energy, productivity, and waste reduction benefits, including greater optimization potential, reduced carbon emissions, and on-demand manufacturing near the point of need. This disruptive, game-changing alternative to injection moulding has the potential to spark the next digital industrial revolution in the UK. With its cutting-edge approach to manufacturing and commitment to a sustainable, circular process, the IntelliJeni project is poised to make a significant impact on the industry, paving the way for a greener, more efficient future.

There is a global race for the development of the next generation of EV battery technology. Batteries using solid state electrolyte (SSE), including the recently discovered garnet based Lithium Lanthanum Zirconium oxide (LLZO), have attracted significant interest due to their high energy density, increased safety and durability. Successful implementation will ultimately be determined by the ability to produce them efficiently, sustainably, cost-effectively and at scale. The CeramBatt project brings together a consortium of word leading organisation from Canada and the UK each with key complementary expertise; National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has significant capability in battery material development in Mississauga and Ottawa, The Manufacturing Technology Center (MTC) is home to the UK National Centre for Additive Manufacturing. Photocentric Limited an innovative SME based in Peterborough that pioneered LCD AM technology and also manufactures photopolymer formulations and Electrovaya Inc a dynamic and rapidly growing SME based in Mississauga which develops and manufactures portable Lithium-ion batteries and battery management systems for the automotive, warehousing, autonomous guided vehicles, power grid, medical, and mobile device sector. The partners will develop and prove a new manufacturing route for SSE batteries using a novel combination of material and advanced manufacturing processes. This is only possible through this ground breaking international collaboration. As well as the economic benefits arising in UK and Canada, the development of more effective battery technology will help boost EV uptake thus helping the UK and Canadian governments to meet critical targets for zero emission transportation.

In LEAD (Low Energy Autonomous Digital) Factory we have put together a consortium containing the world's leading companies in their relevant disciplines, combining their innovation strengths to allow us to create a new method of manufacturing. This unique process will create functional plastics from plant waste, converting them into usable, functional polymers. The manufacturing process using these polymers will then not only be low energy during manufacture but be clean with no harmful emissions in gas or liquid effluent. It will be entirely controlled digitally from the creation of the object and also right through its operation. To ensure circularity in the process we have developed an innovative recovery process to gain useful elements back from the plastic at end of life. Creating parts digitally has numerous energy, productivity, and waste reduction benefits; the parts can be optimised to a greater extent as tooling is always a compromise created from the need to launch rapidly while avoiding expensive tooling modifications, there is no carbon in the tool and product can be supplied immediately in the quantity required, made near the point of need. This offers the potential of being a disruptive game-changing alternative to injection moulding. This project will design, assemble and validate a novel production line powered by 3D printers and validate its capabilities by manufacturing six very different products: glasses, figurines, electronic components, auto parts, lamp shades and dental aligners. These will be validated by leading companies in their fields. We will calculate CO2 savings for them and then be able to extrapolate these savings if widely applied to supply plastic within the UK. This project can act as a trigger for starting the next digital industrial revolution of manufacturing, again here in the UK.

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In order for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050, the country will have to widen the use of materials that provide exceptional benefits. To do this we need bold, game-changing innovations to be applied to our most energy consuming industries. This project will do just that by enabling the wider use of ceramics and thus enabling their energy saving properties to be used in the industries that use most of it. This project will enable the creation of industrial scale production, high quality Silicon Carbide parts, one of the most challenging materials to manufacture at a price that enables their widespread adoption within the Foundation Industries. Silicon Carbide is extremely hard, heat resistant (melts at 2730°C), abrasion and chemical resistant, and thermally conductive. These exceptional properties make Silicon Carbide ideal for a wide variety of applications. However, because it is also very hard it's extremely difficult to manufacture. This project will combine British inventions to create dense Silicon Carbide parts by an innovative additive manufacturing method using visible light selectively passing through LCD screen-based printers to make parts which will be subsequently infiltrated with silicon to bond with residual carbon to densify the parts to become usable dense Silicon Carbide parts. Furthermore, it will place the UK at the forefront of using novel materials that provide energy saving benefits, creating more jobs and providing technological benefits over Asian imported products. The project is led by Photocentric, with MTC as a technical partner, Kanthal as an industrial user and the Cast Metal Federation and Glass Futures as organisations who will enable its transfer through their members.

Metals production, from mining ore through manufacturing parts, accounts for 7% of global energy use. While metal additive manufacturing (AM) has been promoted as a way to help us reduce our carbon footprint, this has not been well demonstrated with clear and complete information. Furthermore, there lacks a comprehensive comparison of energy consumption by the different AM processes. To optimize when, where, which, and how to implement AM, we must be able to assess its environmental impact and compare this to conventional manufacturing processes like CNC Machining. For effective analysis, we must consider the whole manufacturing lifecycle. This includes all the steps from feedstock manufacturing, printing, post-processing, and any material reuse along the way. Continuing studies and analysis will only achieve so much, the need to implement digital tools that can monitor, analyse, predict and alert a range of impact and deviations in standard operating procedures is fundamental to continue the maturing of a manufacturing process which has already had an impact on material efficiency. The process of AM is sensitive to many factors, and while AM opens many design efficiencies, such as part consolidation, the energy impact from materials requiring conditioning, not meeting required standards and the time taken to develop build parameters to ensure build by build stability is key to reducing energy use. A print failure has tremendous energy impact. A CNC machine will use 23 KWh per Kg of material removed, with a high rate of success in part quality. Compared to AM and L-PBF which uses on average 80.5 KWh per Kg of material added. Part acceptance rates for L-PBF are lower than a CNC Machine. For every 100kg of material processed, assuming an equal 10% part-failure rate, 805 KWh of energy would be wasted versus the 230KWh for CNC. The development of the tools proposed within the SAMCRD project would make a profound impact in energy reduction and accelerate additive manufacturing as a viable sustainable production process as part of the UK's manufacturing capabilities.

To develop metal additive manufacturing process, using LCD driven 3D printers, its thermal process and optimisation of the metal loaded photopolymer resin slurry as a feedstock.

In BattMan3D we will develop innovative new industrial 3D printers for the manufacture of battery cells designed for electric vehicles. By improving manufacturing techniques, we will support the UK in establishing world-leading capabilities in state-of-the-art battery production. Our industry-specific formulations and printers will be designed to produce electrodes with complex geometries, with improved energy density. Our process will print entire battery cells, from anode through electrolyte to cathode, including the casing. We will demonstrate the technology during the project using typical lithium-ion battery cell chemistry, but our printers will be designed to be ready for future battery technologies, with capabilities to print a range of cathode and anode materials as well as solid-state electrolytes. By the end of the project we will have developed: * A 3D printer for battery cell components, suitable for commercialisation at a retail price below £250k * Printable formulations, utilising functionalised nanoparticles, to produce cell electrodes and separators * Demonstrator battery pack, validated and benchmarked against conventionally produced batteries This will have significant benefits for the battery industry: * Replacement of a 4-step process (coating, drying, calendaring, notching) with simple deposition and cure, thus reducing the fabrication time by a factor of 10 * Reduction of production costs for a 40kWh auto battery by more than £1255 * Removal of environmentally damaging N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) solvents from cell production process * Up to 85% reduction in waste management expense In this way we will improve vertical integration in the cell manufacture process, improving UK capabilities and resilience of supply. We will also remove high-energy processes and high-risk materials from the manufacturing chain, while benefiting from the cleaner energy mix of the UK grid to improve the overall environmental footprint of automotive battery manufacture.

To develop novel renewably sourced, recyclable 3D printing materials with natural odours.

The Covid19 crisis has shown how the lack of PPE and suitable medical equipment can lead to a national health crisis. This aim of this project is the creation of a both sustainable and versatile solution to the manufacturing shortage experienced in the last 6 months. It will enable the UK to have its own domestic manufacturing resilience, which is entirely made from renewable sources. The recent large usage of PPE is creating an ecological problem as tens of millions of single use plastics are being thrown away at an alarming rate. This project will aim to address both problems of shortage and sustainability. Photocentric, a UK company, invented the using LCD screens to create 3D printed objects using low-energy visible light to selectively cure photopolymer. This concept has been successfully commercialised with the manufacture of large format industrial 3D printers made in Peterborough. Photocentric has now validated the mass-manufacture of PPE during this crisis by manufacturing nearly 2 million face shields for the NHS. This project will optimise this process to enable it to be transferred to make an unlimited number of different items at a time of need. The process will be automated and can be delivered in a shipping container as a mobile 3D printing factory for the fabrication of PPE and medical devices at the point of need. The 3D printing resins used in this process will be developed and manufactured in the UK, using 100% sustainable resources including 30% recycled materials. In Summary, this project enables low-cost, rapid and versatile manufacturing of PPE and medical devices using low energy LCD screen 3D printing with 100% sustainable materials form UK derived technology, made in the UK.

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Imagine a full-sized metal container that can make any plastic part you want, instantly delivered to the point of need whether it be a factory or a hospital. That is the very ambitious aim of this project. To return manufacturing capabilities back to the UK and do it by using the high-tech new nature of 3D printing. It is based on recently invented technology invented here in the UK that makes 3D printing much faster and lower cost. It uses LCD screens that you use every day in your mobile, laptop or TV screen that creates a visual image that in turn hardens liquid to make a solid object by solidifying the specially made patented light sensitive resin. This project will enable us, as a country, to make plastic items again in scale and at low cost- all created from this factory in a box. The factory can be delivered anywhere to manufacture any plastic items in scale at the point of need, as quickly as the 40ft container can be driven there. The factory will contain a 3D printer driven by an LCD screen-based 3D printer capable of producing plastics in the widest variety of properties (elastomeric, durable, hard and tough) with inline automatic post processing. These shipping containers will be pre-equipped, so they are ready to be moved to any location in the UK, loaded with different liquid resins, capable of providing an instant start up manufacturing solution to make any plastic item by just being transferred a digital file. This allows the UK to have an instant, on-demand source of manufactured items, but not subject to vagaries of supply from the Far East. The patented concept of using LCD screens to print plastic was invented in the UK in 2014 and has been proven for many years now. There are now over half of million mobile phone sized LCD screen printers in use, nearly all of them made in China. Photocentric, who invented the technology, can make them in largest sizes yet commercialised and this is where the technology becomes an alternative to injection moulding. The recent crisis has for the first time enabled Photocentric to make tens of thousands of the same item and with it enabled us to have a vision of how the future of manufacturing in volume could look. Parts made instantly from digital files, not after months of expensive metal tooling fabrication.

Safran Power UK will work with its supply chain partners on all aspects of electrical power systems and energy useage on future technology aircraft. Scope will cover Generation, Control, Starter-Generator function and electrical actuation for More Electric Aircraft, and variants in Regional Jets, Biz Jets and advanced Rotorcraft. As the technology developed for electrical machinery and associated control electronics is intrinsically modular, scaleable and flexible, the partnership's work programme will also address aspects of Electrical Hybrid Propulsion for Vertical and Conventional take-off-and landing vehicles. The partnership will develop and invest in the UK industrial capability for these future market segments.

"This project aims to develop 3D printed batteries using Photocentric's novel 3D printing process, in which visible light emitted from liquid crystal (LCD) screens, is being used to selectively cure liquid photopolymer with a sub 10-micron accuracy. A major challenge of the 21st century is electrochemical energy storage, thus the production of more efficient batteries. Despite the progress achieved in this field, especially on the development and reliability of lithium-ion batteries, the main challenge remains to obtain batteries with high energy and power density, lightweight, safe and cost effective. The main hurdle for achieving improved battery performance is the current fabrication process include multiple, energy and labour-intensive steps, which has little scope for customisation such as changing geometry. The aim of this feasibility project is to use state-of-the art 3D printing to design and manufacture of battery materials for a variety of battery parts as well as solid state batteries for electric vehicles with accurate control of size, shape and porosity of electrodes to enable high energy density while minimising the overall size and weight. In collaboration with the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) and Johnson Matthey (JM), we intend to develop 3D printable SSB materials and adapt our 3D printing method for fast and efficient fabrication of batteries. This technology will be tested on small-scale batteries as a proof concept and subsequently scaled up."

The Manufacture of Maximus

To develop multifunctional 3D printing resins, and transform the current performance of 3D printers, allowing them to print an order of magnitude faster.

"This project will create an innovative approach to additive manufacturing of fully functional metal components, providing both large scale and low cost to the user. The approach is based 3D printing of parts from a liquid which contains a very high metal content in an organic binder which is photo-curable under visible light. This forms a green body which is then fired to remove the organic content and sintered to full density. This combines the advantages of processes such as metal injection moulding (e.g. excellent resolution of true net-shape parts and removing the need for post-processing to achieve a suitable surface finish for engineering parts) with the flexibility of mass customisation achievable in additive manufacturing, since mould tooling is not required. Over the last 3 years, Photocentric, an established UK manufacturer of photo-curable resins, has developed a new type of 3D printing process using light in the visible range of the spectrum to cure the polymer instead of UV. This enables normal LCD screens as found in iPads and televisions to be used as the image creation device in the 3D printer, reducing costs by an order of magnitude in comparison to laser-based systems. A range of innovative printers has been successfully brought to market for creating plastic objects at lower costs and in larger formats than previously possible, taking advantage of the wide array of high resolution screens available. Now, with the aid of InnovateUK, this consortium will extend the technology to develop a process to deliver custom parts for all industrial sectors in many different metals. LPW, a leading provider of metal powders and TWI, one of Europe's largest research and technology organisations, will work with Photocentric to develop the process. The consortium will develop the ink, the metal 3D printer and the printing process. Industrial direction and process validation will be achieved through the involvement of Hieta, one of the UK's leading exponents of additive manufacturing. The process will enable rapid production of low cost custom metal parts in many different metals supplying them to a variety of industries- all made without tooling direct from a digital file."

This project will create the largest 3D printer of its type ever made, enabling high speed production of multiple items at low cost. This printer will exploit technology that allows the use of normal LCD screens to cure successive layers of resin, building up the 3D object more quickly and energy efficiently than competitive technologies. LCD screens have increased in resolution and reduced in price signifcantly in recent years. This enables large format 3D printers to now be economically attractive. In turn, this opens new opportunities for additive manufacturing in much higher volumes, dramatically reducing the cost of manufacture for each component. The proposed materials innovation will further improve the quality, strength and toughness of printed parts. This will enable them to be used in everyday mass produced products whilst being custom-made. This project will transform current 3D manufacturing, moving it from a high priced niche area to a fast, low cost solution suitable for industrial manufacture. Benefits are lower transportation costs, inventory levels and energy requirements, improving the competitiveness of UK manufacturing. For the first time, it will enable engineers, designers and entrepreneurs to create and manufacture their own custom products economically.

This project will optimise the design of an innovative 3D printer that can create metal and ceramic objects at a fraction of the cost provided by current methods. In doing so, it has the opportunity to enable virtually anyone to make custom metal and ceramic objects. The 3D printer will enable engineers, designers and entrepreneurs to create and manufacture their own custom products quickly, economically and with low energy use. This concept has been invented by Photocentric, based in Peterborough, who have already patented and commercialised a novel 3D printer to print plastic parts. This patent applied-for process, developed in the UK, uses a normal high resolution display screen, such as an HDTV, to create images that harden layers of specially formulated resins filled with very small metal or ceramic particles. The light hardens the liquid layer to create a custom shape and by then moving up a layer thickness at a time can create designs with geometries impossible to create by injection moulding. The process is finished by heating it in a kiln, leaving just the solid metal or ceramic material fused together. The first desktop printers using this technology are planned to be avilable in March 2018 costing under £5000.

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"This project is highly ambitious and challenging. We are therefore seeking independent, external expertise in two specific areas : - To review the current state of the art and assess competing technologies in the market place and under development. - To provide metallurgical advice on the rapid 3D printing process, specifically 'post build' when the object is fired to produce a pure metal part. This will include optimal firing conditions, degassing and the use of support structures."

This project aims to make a 3D printer prototype that operates using novel technology to create the image. The object will be formed in photopolymer, but polymerised using an innovative system. It will generate an extremely high resolution physical copy of any digital 3D file. The anticipated cost of the machine, and consumable, would be considerably lower than existing 3D printers of this kind. This will enable a wider uptake of this exciting technology and will in turn widen the scope of applications for it, from prototype building to small scale manufacturing.