Public Funding for Trl9 Limited

Biological pollutants include bacteria, moulds, viruses, animal dander and cat saliva, and pollen. Viruses are transmitted and bacteria are carried by people and animals. Dried, air borne protein in urine from rats and mice is also a potent allergen. Contaminated central air handling systems can become breeding grounds for these biological contaminants and can then distribute these contaminants into occupied spaces. The existing innovation is a closed system, air sterilisation unit which was developed during the later stages of the global COVID19 pandemic in 2021 with assistance from InnovateUK through a call for "Systems to Combat COVID-19" and subsequently through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for the concept design phase conducted at the Sustainable Advanced Manufacturing centre, Sunderland University. A patent application was filled (UK Patent Application No 2107621.1) in 2021\. There is currently no international standard to determine the efficacy of air sterilisation units and quantifying their ability to destroy pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2\. Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), in conjunction with The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) trialled the first TRL9 Limited prototype UVC-Reactor in June 2023 in their Liverpool based Category 3 laboratories. Trials were conducted with live COVID virus from a patient at Royal Liverpool University Hospital. A clinical report was produced, which demonstrated 100% efficacy for the UVC-Reactor system compared to the control sample. The aim of this project is to conduct extended field trials to evaluate and enhance the UVC-Reactor solution for applications in the clean air domain. The technology focuses on monitoring, mitigating and extracting airborne pathogens and pollution. Field results from a real world environment and application will then provide insight and feedback from future users and customers to make final adjustments to the product that will lead to successful commercialisation. In parallel to the field trials, research at LSTM will enable testing for other pathogens such as measles, influenza and monkey pox, which will be integrated into the efficacy determination model.

End users in high value and other manufacturing sectors report low confidence in the long-term performance of both coatings and their processing as a barrier to the introduction of new products dependent on surface engineering and advanced coatings. Responding to this market need this project aims to shift the paradigm from "apply the material you have" to "engineer the material you need" developing significant global markets through increased confidence in surface engineering technology. High entropy alloys (HEAs) provide a transformative opportunity in this direction enabling high-performance manufactured goods that are competitive in the international marketplace through extraordinary material properties and unique property combinations. The new High Entropy Superalloys will be engineered around the Al-Co-Cr-Cu-Fe-Ni alloy system promoting both the face-centred cubic phase and the wear resistant nano-oxides phase. To achieve rapid material development, the consortium will devise a hybrid R&D approach combining high throughput experimentation and a neural network software that would allow a computer to sift through more than a million possibilities in search of promising mixtures tailored to the operating environment characteristics. The new approach aims to "discover, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials twice as fast, at a fraction of the cost. The new technology will be first demonstrated to the steel sector that is under ever increasing pressure. Steel mills in the UK will benefit from the project outcomes helping them to maintain and increase their workforce. A successful project outcome will result in jobs created and retained in the supply chain. The project will have a major environmental impact through the substitution of carcinogenic hexavalent chrome and the reduction of cobalt based materials excessively used in hard facing applications worldwide.

Monitor Coatings and TRL9 are both surface engineering companies with customers from all key industry sectors both in the UK and abroad. Over the last 5 years, with the support from Innovate UK, both companies have developed game changing technologies that are shared, through technology transfer licenses, to customers and competitors alike. Such outward transfer of technology has become an important dimension in our corporate strategies and has created a highly interdependent ecosystem between MCL, TRL9 and the organisations currently using our technologies. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, most of the work is currently done remotely. However, in the absence of sophisticated digital remote assistance and monitoring tools the quality of technical and service support to our licensees is extremely compromised. This in turn has causes disruption within the supply chain affecting several UK companies. **Value Proposition:** The proposed concept is a flexible system that makes quality management, training and troubleshooting easier by connecting and automating the coating application activities throughout the ecosystem. Live and historic spray data will be available to a database enabling issues that affect quality to be quickly identified and resolved centrally-even across global operations and into the supplier network.The key value proposition of the digital twin is its ability to combine real-time data, physical dependency models and intelligence from different platforms to simulate, predict and improve assets and E2E processes. **Equality, diversity and inclusion**:Unlike the traditional male dominated surface engineering industry; IoT and Digital Manufacturing presents itself naturally as a genderless and inclusive sector. **Environment:** Thermal spray is a viable alternative to carcinogenic hard chrome plating. The proposed platform will offer a non-destructive coating testing method minimising the waste disposal during cutting and polishing of samples and will result in less part rejections and reworks across all plants using this technology.

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This project enables the development of a simple, rapid, inexpensive and scalable method to fabricate a nano-coated metallic mesh capable of the efficient separation of oil and water emulsions, typically found in the oil and gas industry and resulting from oil extraction techniques. The innovation works on the same principle as fish scales with the combination of relatively large and small holes (micro and nano-sized porosity) which together create a surface that likes water and intensely dislikes oil. This relationship allows water to easily pass through the membrane while leaving the oil behind, separated from the mixture. Current technology either relies on the use of additional chemistry to separate oil and water mixtures, creating secondary effluent streams. Alternatively electrically powered filtration systems are employed which are expensive and energy demanding and rapidly become blocked by the oil content. These pressurised systems often rupture making the current process of separation cumbersome and unproductive and potentially polluting.