THOR (Techno-economical Hydrogen Optimised Renewable-Fuels Project) brings together game-changing innovation in electrolysis from the UK and a burgeoning market opportunity for renewable methanol in Australia. Demand is driven by the requirement for green molecules globally, the marine sector's push to methanol and Australia's abundance of renewable resources. HAMR is methanol project developer and has existing methanol projects in the state of Victoria and an MoU established with global maritime player, Maersk, and the Port of Melbourne. Green hydrogen from water electrolysis can be reacted with CO2 air, industry or biomass to produce renewable methanol. Scaled technologies are available today, however the economics remain unfavourable to offtakers of commercial projects due to the high costs for high pressure green hydrogen production. Supercritical's innovative technology delivers ultra-high system efficiencies and hydrogen delivery pressures. It is predicted that the renewable methanol plants could benefit significantly from the low-cost, high-pressure green hydrogen delivery.

In recent years the technology required to localise a person in space with centimetre-level precision has matured e.g. Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping, Computer Vision and highly accurate GPS. Despite the obvious applications in helping blind persons navigate, these _AI-driven localisation_ technologies have not found widespread use within the vision-impaired community. This is because communicating enough navigation information to someone who cannot see a screen has previously been impossible. Audio and vibration cues do not provide the fidelity that is required to enable independent wayfinding. Thus, of the 292,000 blind people in the UK, 40% cannot make necessary journeys and 50% need support leaving the house. This is where MakeSense comes in, a robotics start-up founded by a team of post-doctoral researchers from Imperial College in July 2021\. MakeSense has developed a remarkable new capability to efficiently communicate 3D spatial information via the sense of touch. Formal scientific trials with blind volunteers in March 2023 demonstrated efficacy which is more comparable to natural sight than to vibration or audio cues. Trials were done to a peer-review standard at Imperial College London, in collaboration with Bravo Victor, a sight loss charity. Combining our patented _haptic interface_ with AI-driven localisation technologies, we have demonstrated a capacity for totally autonomous navigation. However, due to the electromechanical complexity of this device, the size/weight constraints and the prolonged periods of use (associated with the VIP using the device all day), the aid is subject to significant durability and design for repair challenges. MakeSense has been able to develop a functional product that is proven to benefit VIPs. MakeSense urgently needs to conduct a programme of design for durability, lifecycle optimisation and design for repair to ensure that VIPs can be supplied with a navigational aid that is reliable in use but also suitable for rapid repair/servicing in the field or repair centre. MakeSense is seeking _Design Foundations: Repairability_ investment to conduct a fundamental reliability review for the current device in consultation with design of durability experts (Astrimar). After this review MakeSense will work with experienced industrial designers to incorporate fundings. This will help ensure our product is both dependable and easily repairable. We hope to boost employment opportunities and enhance the quality of life of the blind community. Simultaneously, the project aligns with governmental priorities, seeking to reduce the economic burden of blindness and promote a fairer society.

RAPAT is a simple, effective, downloadable software tool helping innovators understand and overcome regulatory and standards-related barriers to product development and acceptance, and facilitate funding and faster technology deployment. RAPAT was originally developed and made freely available to help innovators responding to urgent requirements for medical equipment and devices during the Covid-19 pandemic. An enhanced generic version is scheduled for commercial release later this year incorporating additional functionality to support technology development and funding/investment applications. The project will explore opportunities to develop and export new version(s) of RAPAT, bespoke to potential international markets: Canada, and Brazil. Astrimar's experience of working with technology developers in these countries indicates the need for the affordable in-built guidance/innovation management support offered to developers through RAPAT including country-bespoke guidance and translation into the local language for increased accessibility. This will help in-country developers define technology and user requirements, assess market needs and barriers, understand commercial and technical risks, specific to their home market, as well as plan required testing and assurance activities, prepare funding applications and document fulfilment of requirements to facilitate product acceptance and certification. Without this guidance, many promising technologies may never materialise, if technical challenges to gain product acceptance are not foreseen and relevant local support is not readily available International versions of RAPAT would build on the imminent enhanced commercial version, creating country-focused guidance linking to relevant standards, experts, test houses, with potential capability for the tool to function in different languages. User engagement is considered essential for RAPAT's international success, ensuring it addresses developers' challenges and needs. The project involves surveying and connecting with technology developers, RTOs and innovation support organisations in each country to explore potential interest in country-bespoke RAPAT versions and supporting training, by understanding the relevant regulatory landscape and reflecting specific challenges for each country.

There has been an unprecedented response by many organisations and individuals to help provide the vast quantities of essential medical and personal protective equipment urgently needed by healthcare and social care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The press have indicated many workers do not have sufficient supplies of this essential equipment and as a direct result, many people wanting to help are developing and manufacturing ad-hoc designs, for example using home-based 3D printing. However, many small businesses and individuals working from home are inexperienced in supplying the health industry and have little or no awareness of its certification requirements. Certification can be lengthy and time consuming, if established processes are not already in place for product development, quality control and certification. Even for experienced organisations, certification of a new product may take some time. In emergency situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where large volumes of equipment are needed urgently, there is minimal time for testing and certification ahead of acceptance. Suppliers need to be able to quickly understand what they must and can do in a very short timeframe to ensure their product is fit for purpose and will meet acceptance/certification criteria. The alternative is that much of this good-intentioned "volunteer" effort will be wasted. The project will create a generic, but easy-to-use, framework, applicable across a range of technologies, to help developers achieve rapid acceptance/certification of technology for emergency response or urgent need. The intention is that the framework will support (i) equipment suppliers understanding minimal acceptance requirements for their product, developing and collating appropriate and necessary assurance evidence for acceptance, and (ii) acceptance/procurement authorities more efficiently reviewing the submitted evidence of the product's fitness for purpose and certification when required. The project will adapt established technology qualification, certification and quality management best practice to create a fast-track framework to help suppliers to "de-risk" technology in preparation for accelerated certification and more rapid acceptance by relevant authorities. The framework will use a risk-based approach to facilitate an accelerated route to acceptance whilst addressing the risks and reliability requirements associated with safety-critical items, such as PPE. It will be trialled as part of the project with a small design and manufacturing company. The framework will be provided as a Microsoft Excel tool and will be made freely available. The project partners will also offer support services for those seeking further assistance with its application. Significant interest in, and positive feedback to the tool, has been received both for COVID-19 response products and for wider industry application. Therefore industry bodies and research organisations have been invited to become “ambassadors” for the tool to raise awareness across different industry sectors and promote wider application of the tool and its associated benefits both for developer organisations and to meet the UK’s needs for urgent COVID-19 response products. Training will be developed and provided both for the ambassadors and for users of the tool with a number of training sessions delivered free over the project extension period. The objective is that this training and the ambassador network will provide greater awareness of the tool, increased uptake of its use and greater success for the products and technologies that use it.

This project addresses the need for high integrity offshore oil and gas well abandonment plugs, required for the North Sea in the upcoming wave of platform removals (decommissioning). Currently, wells are abandoned through plugging the well bore with two columns of cement up to 160 meters in length. The industry has concerns over the cost and long term seal integrity of cement plugs and has been seeking an alternative solution for years. This project aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a cost effective, high reliability plugging technology for oil & gas well applications. The project aims to develop a new bismuth based metal alloy to use as a plug, leveraging the unique property of bismuth (expansion upon freezing) to deliver high integrity seals. The project also aims to demonstrate a method of casting the molten alloy down hole to deliver a cost effective deployment method. The use of metal alloy plugs for well abandonment has already been demonstrated in shallow onshore wells in Canada. This project aims to develop superior performance alloys and deployment methods to demonstrate that metal alloy plugs are feasible as a solution for the more demanding, deeper offshore wells in the North Sea and elsewhere in the world.

Bismuth and its alloys expand upon solidification in a similar manner to the way water expands upon freezing to form ice. Some of these alloys are highly resistant to corrosion, and combined with the alloy expansion extreme life sealing applications can cope with harsh aqueous environments. The combined properties of low melting point and subsequent expansion upon solidification can be exploited to cast high integrity, in-situ seals even in underwater environments, including subsea (i.e. melting and underwater casting), within soil and also within porous rock (i.e. control of gas and water migration) and containment of toxic wastes. The alloys can be used as a reversible replacement for cement grout seals. The corrosion resistance of the alloys permit many hundreds of years of service, and such seals can be remelted to gain access to the previously sealed unit, should the need arise. The overall objective of the Expanding Metal Seal Project is to take Rawwater's existing capabilities in the handling and deployment of low melting point metals in defined smooth wall geometries (i.e. well abandonment casing plugs) and to develop tools to create seals in undefined and/or rough walled geometries that cannot be perfectly sealed with existing technologies.