The UK is leading the world in its drive for Net-Zero Emissions by 2050\. Aviation remains critical to the UK for global commerce as well as maintaining its position as one of the largest aerospace industrial suppliers worldwide. To achieve the goals of net-zero emissions and industrial strength employing thousands of people in design, materials, manufacturing, integration and distribution in the UK worth billions of pounds in export revenues, means developing sustainable aviation.
The UK has an enviable reputation in leading high performance aerospace development through academia and industry. The drive to reducing emissions from aviation is now focusing on hydrogen as a zero CO2 emission fuel for commercial aircraft up to single aisle such as the Airbus A320-size planes, by the mid to late 2030s.
To deliver hydrogen fuelled aircraft technologies is a major challenge as the cryogenic temperature coupled with hydrogen compatibility with different materials and the obvious safety case, needs significant development. In addition to this, the storage tanks must be very light to ensure economically viable range and payloads. Current liquid hydrogen ground and space-based tanks will not meet this need.
The fabrication processes developed in Aether have the additional benefits of low waste manufacture typically 5% compared to conventional aerospace manufacturing where less than 10% of the material bought remains in the final product. This represents significant further energy and hence CO2 emission savings in the supply chain.
The development of the scalable technology for these tanks by the consortium partners optimising the use of different material systems to meet all functional needs of tanks for long life, safe aviation use, provides the UK with unique opportunities to generate advanced tank technologies with worldwide markets.
The Consortium build on a 30-year history of innovative metal and polymer composite research across multiple sectors to be in a position to develop scalable manufacturing methods capable of delivering large, safe, long service life hydrogen storage tanks for aviation use in the future.
Developing this technology in the UK enhances the existing UK manufacturing and export market position. This creates new advanced engineering and manufacturing jobs supplying UK aerospace, space and automotive sectors and delivers on UK pledges for Net-Zero emissions by 2050\.
World leadership in hydrogen for transport is essential to move beyond hydrocarbon fuels and augments electrification through clean onboard hybrids or fuel cell power generation. But this needs light-weight hydrogen tanks.
The emergence of the hydrogen economy includes development of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. Key challenges for road vehicles are to maximise hydrogen storage capacity whilst minimising mass and cost. HYTRANSTOR aims to develop a cost effective manufacturing route for mobile hydrogen storage to address the emerging markets for fleet, freight, and personal transportation.
To meet the future needs of the vehicle production industry ways of reducing CO2 are required. Improvements in powertrain are only able to meet a portion of this challenge, to deliver the complete reduction in CO2 required a massive weight reduction of current vehicles is required. This weight reduction also must be accomplished by without affecting the performance, safety or qualty of the vehicles. In addition, if the vehicles are to be taken to production then this must all be achieved cost effectively. This programme aims to develop a new range of materials that meet all of these challenges. The materials being developed are based around thermoplastics. Therse materials benefit from enhanced recyclability and the processes employed in this this programme will allow these materials to be used cost effectively in structral applications in the automobile industry.
The project will investigate how surface engineering of a 3 dimensionally reinforced fabric by chemical surface modification can impact the properties of the end composite form it is moulded into.
The aim is to develop a new lightweight wheel technology for aircraft. The new wheels will utilise some of the
latest advances in materials engineering. The programme will utilise latest advances made in the automotive
sector and apply them in the aviation market. Key requirements include very high toughness demonstrating
excellent impact strength at low temperatures, high mechanical fatigue strength, and a very low tendency to
creep. Requirements in this sector are formidable, where wheels must survive a series of industry-specific tests
including extended roll life, roll-on-rim, combined load & burst tests in order to be viable. If achieved, the 25+%
potential weight savings would put UK tier 1 suppliers in a world leading position. Project DAEDALUS is a 6
partner 2yr initiative.
The project will investigate the upscaling of low cost recycled carbon fibre bur surface treatment. The end
objective is to improve the interaction of various resin systems with the recycled carbon fibre in order to
improve the overall composite strength and modulus. This will deliver a low cost, low weight but high strength
material which is ideal for use in the mass automotive market.
The project will investigate methods for improving the performance and longevity of 2nd Lithium Ion batteries for both the automotive and mobile telecommunications markets.
The project will develop novel spray applied adhesion promoters for use on high end thermoplastic materials such as PEEK and PPS for use with commercial epoxy or polyurethane based coatings, paints or adhesives.
The project will combine cutting edge materials chemistry based on highly reactive intermediates combined with sustainable resins and monomers to create a new coatings platform with the potential for all coating market sectors. This platform will use a unique curing chemistry and will enable, within the project consortium, the development of ink-jet printable inks for the graphic signage and food packaging market areas. Issues surrounding the H&S of components used in current UV-curable inkjet products will be addressed along with providing inkjet formulations having significantly improved environmental credentials. The use of sustainable materials as key components of the ink formulation, the optimisation of the reactive intermediate to allow waterbased formulations, the use of lower power radiation sources and the ability of the reactive intermediate to eliminate substrate pre-treatments (for adhesion) will all contribute to inkjet inks having lower environmental impact than is currently achievable. Success in the inkjet market will lead to further exploitation in the graphic arts market and more broadly in other UV-curable coating markets..
Engineered plastics and polymers are becoming increasingly exploited in multiple markets for
use as product parts and are replacing traditional materials such as wood and metal because
they combine many advantageous properties such as formability, strength and light weight.
However, whilst having useful bulk properties, many of these materials have inherent surface
properties that lead to manufacturing and end use challenges, such as poor ability to adhere to
other materials.
Onto™ highly reactive chemistry provides a solution to these manufacturing problems by
allowing surface modification of a wide range of materials in various forms, resulting in new
functionality being imparted at the material surface. Whilst Onto™ is capable of reacting with
many types of materials, we believe that it has the greatest commercial potential for polymers
for which alternative technologies are less effective. We are choosing to concentrate on three
key applications of the technology, namely surface energy/wetting, adhesion promotion and
direct adhesion to a coating. All three contribute to solving surface interface problems for
which we are aware that problems exist in the market, for example interlayer delamination in
flexible electronic devices. However, the potential for these applications is vast because
engineered polymers are utilised in so many products.
A wide ranging market study must first be carried out to understand in which markets these
materials are used, and to understand where their use is limited mainly by their surface
properties. From this broad overview, it will then be necessary to focus on specific markets in
detail in order to identify the greatest opportunity for Onto™ to add value to products. The
technology could have a large impact socially and environmentally because it could facilitate
product innovation and improve existing product performance in fields such as renewable
energy and medical applications.