Pioneer 10

10 UK infrastructure

Engineering Engineering and and Physical Physical Sciences Sciences Research Research Council Council

the next 50 years

Smartphones in space The lensless microscope Peer review – why it works Science minister on engineering the future

CONTENTS 18

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3-5 News: Recent EPSRC investments 6-11 Briefings: Research in action 12-13 Pure and simple: Simpleware spin-out wins the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for the second successive year 14-15 Space man: Dr Chris Bridges launches a smartphone satellite into space 16-17 Pursuit of excellence: Professor Eileen Harkin-Jones on EPSRC support 18-21 Engineering the future: Science minister David Willetts MP and EPSRC Chief Executive, Professor David Delpy, on UK infrastructure research and training 22-23 The system system: EPSRCsponsored infrastructure projects 24-25 Cutting edge: PhD student Hollie Rosier’s amazing close-up salt photograph

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26-29 Carbon yarns: Professor Alan Windle – the brains behind super-strong, ultra-thin carbon nanotube fibres 30-31 In profile: BP’s Dr Robert Sorrell 32-33 Power ranger: EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow Dr Gregory Offer, on future energy sources for transport 34-35 Car of the future: What we could be driving in 10 years’ time 36-37 Standing up for science: Sarah Wiseman: PhD student and stand-up comedian 38-41 Lens logic: Professor John Rodenburg’s revolutionary microscope technology – no need for a lens 42 Reading the unreadable: A new X-ray technique to read ancient manuscripts

24 Editor: Mark Mallett (mark.mallett@epsrc.ac.uk) Design: Rachael Brown (rachael.brown@epsrc.ac.uk) Contributors: Jenny Aranha; Dr Chris Bridges; Professor David Delpy; Professor Eileen Harkin-Jones; Mike Hatcher; Gemma Hulkes; Victoria McGuire; Dr Gregory Offer; Grace Palmer; Jane Reck; Hollie Rosier; Matt Shinn; Dr Robert Sorrell; Richard Tibenham; Clare Waldron; Rt Hon David Willetts MP; Sarah Wiseman Pioneer@epsrc.ac.uk

43 Growth stories: EPSRC case study app for the iPhone generation

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK’s main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences.

EPSRC invests around £800 million a year in research and postgraduate training to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change.

The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science.

This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone’s health, lifestyle and culture.

EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils which have responsibility in other research areas.

The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK. To provide feedback on this magazine, and to subscribe to print and/or electronic versions of Pioneer, please e-mail pioneer@epsrc.ac.uk

Pictures courtesy of thinkstock.com unless otherwise stated.

Contact: 01793 444305/442804

PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

2

NEWS

9,300 PhD students supported by EPSRC

£17 milion for collaborative iCASE studentships

New CDT cohort starts in 2014

£1 million for Vacation Bursaries

£84.2 million for 2013-14 Doctoral Training Grants

Investing in future research leaders EPSRC has announced major investments in PhD training, focused on helping equip future research leaders with the knowledge, skills and creative approaches the UK needs for economic growth and social wellbeing.

Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs)

EPSRC Chief Executive, Professor David Delpy, says: “Developing the talented leaders of tomorrow is one of our key goals and, with around 9,300 students currently receiving funding from us, EPSRC is the largest single supporter of PhD training in the UK, providing young researchers with the right support, in the right environment, at a crucial stage in their careers.

The centres help students create new working cultures, build relationships between teams in universities and forge lasting links with industry. Students are funded for four years, and the programme includes technical and transferrable skills training, as well as a research element.

“Around 35 per cent of all UK engineering and physical sciences students, and 10 per cent of all PhD students, are supported

by EPSRC. “The students we support move into crucial areas for the UK economy, such as life sciences; the medical and professional services; and industry. Forty-three per cent of our 2009-12 PhD cohort went directly into industry or the public sector.”

EPSRC invests in three main channels of PhD support: •

Centres for Doctoral Training, funded in five-year tranches (£70 million per annum)

•

Doctoral Training Grants (£83.5 million per annum)

•

Industrial CASE studentships (£17 million per annum)

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Students at Centres for Doctoral Training carry out a PhD-level research project together with taught coursework in a supportive and exciting environment.

Since 2008, EPSRC has invested in over 80 CDTs focused on key challenges for the UK and global economies, such as climate change and the need to strengthen industry.

In April 2013, universities were invited to submit outline proposals for Centres for Doctoral Training grant awards as part of EPSRC’s £350 million investment in CDTs from 2014-18. Successful applicants are being invited to progress to the full proposal stage. Grants will be announced by the end of 2013, and the first cohorts of students will start in October 2014.

research grant income. Doctoral Training Grants allow institutions to be flexible in terms of student recruitment and retention, and enable them to vary the length of support (between three and four years) dependent on the project.

In 2013-14, EPSRC is investing £84.2 million in Doctoral Training Grants – the largest single commitment it has made to this kind of training. The investment includes £10 million for Doctoral Prizes and £1 million for Vacation Bursaries.

Industrial CASE studentships Each year EPSRC invests £17 million in collaborative iCASE studentships, where students spend a significant part of their time working with an industrial partner.

Further details about all these investments can be found at: www.epsrc.ac.uk

Doctoral Training Grants (DTGs) Each year EPSRC awards four-year Doctoral Training Grants to academic institutions based on their

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NEWS

Four Centres for Innovative Manufacturing (£21 million) Six flexible manufacturing projects (£12 million) £47 million towards major global challenges

£45 million for new manufacturing research projects EPSRC is investing £45 million in research projects into innovative new manufacturing technologies, techniques and systems in a range of important sectors: Four new Centres for Innovative Manufacturing (£21 million): The Centres will develop new manufacturing methods in the fields of electronics, laser use in production processes, medical devices and food production.

The Centres will bring together academics from 15 UK universities and 60 project partners from industry.

EPSRC currently supports 12 Centres for Innovative Manufacturing across a wide range of fields – from additive manufacturing and industrial sustainability to continuous manufacturing and crystallisation. The new Centres bring the total to 16.

Six flexible manufacturing projects (£12.2 million): The research teams will look into a variety of challenges connected

Engineering the future of healthcare (£12.2 million)

to developing more flexible and adaptive manufacturing technology and systems.

Examples include networks of light-based systems for accurate measurement of products and real-time control of factory machines; precise metal forming processes for small batches of high value components and products; and assembly lines that use interchangeable components and evolve and adapt quickly to meet new demands.

Six ICT research projects for UK manufacturing competitiveness (£12 million): The projects will use concepts of cloud computing, crowdsourcing, gaming technology, ICT dashboards and platforms to provide new ways to develop, design and manage manufacturing.

These projects demonstrate the collaborative nature of manufacturing research and will involve nine universities and over 70 manufacturing partners working together.

Engineering the future of healthcare EPSRC is investing £12.2 million in 15 creative engineering healthcare research projects.

The research is aimed at developing innovative technologies which can improve the diagnosis and treatment of serious illnesses including Alzheimer’s and cancer; improve patient outcomes; and help severely disabled people.

The investment focuses on three areas: •

Medical imaging with particular focus on neuroimaging

•

Acute treatment technology

•

Assistive technology and rehabilitation

The investment includes £2.9 million towards technologies to improve patients’ quality of life. The projects aim to improve prosthetics and hearing aids, and also develop wearable material or create an exoskeleton to support healing muscles.

£47 million towards major global challenges EPSRC is investing £47 million in new engineering projects, bringing together leading international engineers and scientists to address global challenges such as tackling climate change, improving healthcare and meeting basic needs, including access to clean water. £25 million is being invested in five frontier engineering projects: •

Scaling up synthetic biology: led by Imperial College London

•

Nature inspired engineering: led by University College London

•

Synthetic biology applications to water: led by Glasgow University

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•

Individualised multiscale simulation: led by the University of Sheffield

•

Simulation of open engineered biological systems: led by Newcastle University

A further £20 million in large programme grants will go to four UK universities, focusing on Resilience, Health and Technology & Growth. They are: •

•

Assessing the underworld – an integrated model of city infrastructures: led by Professor Chris Rogers, University of Birmingham (£5.9 million) Heterogeneous mechanics in hexagonal alloys across length and time scales: led

by Professor Fionn Dunne, Imperial College London (£5 million) •

Sonopill: minimally invasive gastrointestinal diagnosis and therapy: led by Professor Sandy Cochran, University of Dundee (£5 million)

•

Implantable microsystems for personalised anti-cancer therapy: led

by Professor Alan Murray, University of Edinburgh (£4.2 million)

Up to £2 million will also be invested in UK and US teams to research provision of clean water for all.

Details can be found at www.epsrc.ac.uk

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NEWS New cyber institute The UK’s second academic research institute devoted to cyber security has been launched.

The institute will research techniques for automated program analysis and verification of computer software, with the aim of providing businesses, individuals and government further confidence that the software will behave in a secure fashion when installed on operational networks.

The £4.5 million, six-university institute has been established by GCHQ; EPSRC, through the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme; and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

Innovators rewarded EPSRC and the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) have awarded £15 million to a cohort of some of the most exciting current and future UK research leaders to keep the UK at the heart of the global engineering research community.

The awards, arrived at through a competitive process, were made to the following EPSRC Challenging Engineers and RAEng Senior Research Fellows: Professor Jeremy O’Brien (University of Bristol); Professor Molly Stevens (Imperial College London); Professors Constantin Croussios/Dr Ruth Wilcox (University of Oxford/University of Leeds); Professors Mercedes Maroto-Valer/Adam Lee (HeriotWatt University/Cardiff University); Dr Tiziana Rossetto/Professor Mordechai Haklay/ Dr Luke Bisby (University College London/ University of Edinburgh); Dr Janet Barlow/ Dr Catherine Noakes/Professor M Schraefel (University of Reading/University of Leeds/ University of Southampton); Professor Matt Clark (University of Nottingham).

For further information, and to view a series of videos about the ground-breaking research being undertaken by these individuals, go to www.epsrc.ac.uk.

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£6.5 million for drugs of the future

£15 millon for dynamic research leaders

£12.9 million towards a greener UK

£85 million research capital fund

New cyber research institute

Two new cyber Centres for Doctoral Training

£12.9 million towards greener UK EPSRC is investing £12.9 million in the UK Catalysis Hub, a nation-wide research programme into catalytic science focused on supporting UK economic growth while helping reduce CO2 emissions, produce cleaner water and generate more sustainable energy.

Catalysts speed up chemical reactions, making them possible on useful timescales. Catalysis science is at the heart of key industrial processes.

Virtually all goods at some point in their manufacture involve the use of a catalyst.

The UK Catalysis Hub, based at the Research Complex at Harwell, will coordinate multidisciplinary scientists and chemical engineers from over 30 different universities.

The hub will enable scientists to collaborate on projects, share insights, expertise and developments; facilitate world-class research and attract new funding streams.

£6.5 million for drugs of the future EPSRC has awarded over £6 million to research projects to enhance the development of biopharmaceuticals.

The 12 commercially significant projects include industrial-scale production of antibodies; stem cell preservation at room temperature; and commercial-scale stem cell therapy.

The funding marks phase two of the Bioprocessing Research Industry Club (BRIC), a partnership between EPSRC, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and a consortium of leading companies.

£85 million research capital fund EPSRC is targeting £85 million of government investment into new capital to strengthen the academic research base in three technologies: •

Advanced Materials (£30 million)

•

Grid-scale Energy Storage (£30 million)

•

Robotics & Autonomous Systems (£25 million)

The work will help develop new ways of storing power; new materials that can aid manufacturing and other industries; and further develop how autonomous systems communicate, learn from and work with humans.

Following assessment panels in June, funding announcements are expected in July 2013. Further details can be found at: www.epsrc.ac.uk.

Two new cyber CDTs EPSRC is launching two new Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) in cyber security.

The centres will help provide the UK with the next generation of researchers and leaders in cyber security through multidisciplinary PhD training. They will also engage with industry to ensure training reflects the dynamic nature of cyber threats.

The centres, based at the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London, are jointly funded by EPSRC under the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills under the National Cyber Security Programme.

The Oxford CDT will focus on emerging technology themes such as Big Data, systems verification and real-time security.

The Royal Holloway centre will focus on problems faced by business and government such as secure cryptographic systems and protocols, and security of telecomms networks and critical infrastructure.

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briefings Fur deals Around 400,000 animals are used in toxicity testing in the UK each year – and millions more worldwide. The search is on to minimise this practice.

Dr Gary Mirams, from the University of Oxford, has received EPSRC funding to tackle a major problem in drug development – predicting the side effects a drug may have on the heart.

Currently new drugs have to be tested in animals to determine whether they will cause a disturbance in the heart’s rhythm, which can be fatal. These experiments involve thousands of animals each year, while being accurate in only 70 per cent of cases.

Dr Mirams is using data collected from animal tests and human clinical trials to develop computer simulations that could help dramatically reduce live animal testing.

Dr Miram’s research is one of four multidisciplinary projects co-funded by EPSRC and the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research.

The awards combine the expertise of mathematicians, computer modellers and toxicologists. Each project has an industrial partner from the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors, with companies providing data and other in-kind contributions.

Sponsored research in action

Jam busters Researchers at the University of Southampton are investigating the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for controlling traffic lights.

The development of artificial intelligence-based approaches to junction control is

one of many promising new technologies that make better use of urban and road capacity while reducing the environmental impacts of road traffic.

The team have developed computers that can learn how to control traffic lights like a human would and can even improve their performance through experience. Elements of the research were successfully tested for the BBC’s One Show.

The research was originally funded by EPSRC and is continuing under Technology Strategy Board funding, with Siemens as an industrial partner.

Meal deal Every year seven million tonnes of food are discarded in the UK. Now, a research team from the University of Glasgow have harnessed the germ-killing power of ozone to make packaged food safer and longerlasting, which could help substantially reduce food waste.

Co-supported by EPSRC, Dr Declan Diver and Dr Hugh Potts of the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy have prototyped a device that, when held against the packaging’s surface, generates a plasma that temporarily turns some of the oxygen inside the sealed package into ozone, a very effective germicide.

Anacai, which is initially focusing on the food packaging industry – worth over £5 billion per year.

The research is supported by an EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account, the Scottish Investment Bank, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance.

EPSRC has supported Dr Diver’s plasmarelated research for over 15 years.

The ozone naturally returns to its original state after just a couple of hours – more than enough time for any mould, fungi or bacteria on the packaging’s contents to be destroyed without adversely affecting its taste. The product’s effectiveness as a germ-killer also extends food shelf life by at least one extra day.

The prototype device is being brought to market by university spin-out company, PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

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briefings

Sponsored research in action

Material gains The work of Durham Graphene Sciences, a company formed to develop low-cost eco-friendly ways to make wonder material graphene, has been highlighted in a major award to Durham University from Times Higher Education (THE) magazine.

‘grow’ significant quantities of graphene.

The research was so promising that, in 2010, backed by Durham University Business and Innovation Services, he formed Durham Graphene Sciences (DGS), to commercialise it.

At just one atom thick, and resembling nanoscale chicken wire, graphene, the strongest, thinnest material known to science, has a host of amazing potential applications – from flexible electronics to drug delivery. Unfortunately, graphene is hard to produce sustainably and in large, cost-effective quantities. Step forward Karl Coleman, Professor of Chemistry and Nanomaterials at Durham University.

Two years and a host of awards later, DGS is central to a market with a projected worth of over £400 million by 2020; and the company’s contribution has been recognised throughout the industry.

Supported by EPSRC and Royal Society funding, Professor Coleman pioneered a low-cost, clean and scalable way to

Award judge, Chris Cobb, says: “Durham’s approach to the production of synthetic graphene will have a major impact on

The THE award for Outstanding Contribution to Innovation and Technology was made to Durham University in recognition of its support for Professor Coleman’s work – made possible through DGS.

Skin deep University of Reading researchers have found that a chemical used in some antiwrinkle creams can nearly double the amount of the protein collagen needed to give skin its elasticity.

Graphene was first isolated in 2004, by two EPSRC-funded scientists Professor André Geim and Dr (now Professor) Konstantin Novoselov, who were later awarded the Nobel Prize and subsequent knighthoods for their graphene research.

Sonic lasso

The research team measured the effectiveness of a peptide called MatrixylTM on collagen, a protein which repairs skin tissue. They found that MatrixylTM can almost double the amount of collagen that the cells in our body produce, provided the concentration is high enough.

Collagen is the most abundant protein in mammals and constitutes a significant proportion of our connective tissue. It is thought that peptide-based treatments that stimulate the formation of collagen could be made to treat wounds and enhance stem cell research, as well as be used for cosmetic applications.

Professor Ian Hamley, from the University of Reading’s Department of Chemistry, says: “Our research, supported by a university studentship with some additional funding

by EPSRC, shows that products with MatrixylTM will have skin-care benefits.”

Commenting on the wider commercial aspects of the MatrixylTM research, Professor Hamley says: “Studies like this are very important for the consumer as cosmetic companies rarely publish their work so rivals can’t copy their products.”

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manufacturing and allied industries, as well as research disciplines. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this innovation.”

A team of EPSRC-sponsored scientists at the universities of Bristol and Dundee have used ultrasonic technology to demonstrate for the first time that a ‘sonic lasso’ can grip microscopic objects, such as cells, and move them about.

The University of Bristol’s Professor Bruce Drinkwater, who led the study, says: “Our research has shown we can grip and move particles pretty much anywhere and along any path. The impressive thing is that it is completely non-contact and harmless, and so ideal for moving delicate things, such as cells, around under a microscope.

“With further development this could be used to assemble human tissue as part of a tissue engineering production line.”

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briefings

Sponsored research in action Sound investment Technology developed by an EPSRCsponsored research team at the University of Sheffield could lead to more efficient car engines – and huge fuel savings for motorists.

The team have devised a way to use ultrasound, a tool normally found in healthcare technologies, to measure how efficiently an engine’s pistons are moving up and down inside their cylinders.

Professor Rob Dwyer-Joyce says: “Our method will allow engine manufacturers to adjust lubrication levels with confidence and ensure they are using the optimum level for any particular engine, rather than over-lubricating to ensure engine safety.

“The energy used by the piston rings alone amounts to around 4p in every litre of fuel – there is a lot at stake in getting the lubrication right.”

The research collaboration includes Loughborough University, Cranfield University and a host of automotive industry manufacturers and suppliers.

Shoots you EPSRC-sponsored researchers are exploring the use of bamboo for the widespread construction of homes.

Bamboo holds a number of benefits over other construction materials – it grows extremely quickly, reaching maturity three times faster than hard woods, and is renowned for a strength that is comparable to steel.

However, inherent drawbacks currently prevent the widespread use of this material.

Bamboo has limited durability when exposed to UV rays and humidity, and its thin walls and empty internal diaphragm imply that it has poor fire-resistance.

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Working in collaboration with Colombian organisations, the research team, from the University of Bath, Coventry University and the University of Cambridge, are working to develop an understanding of the anatomy and structural applications of bamboo.

With a detailed understanding of the plant’s make-up, the team hope to modify its limitations, while maintaining its unique mechanical properties.

The team are also exploring options for producing high performance composites, combining bamboo fibres with biopolymers and reinforcing bamboo with fibre composites.

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briefings

Sponsored research in action

Sight savers Corneal damage is a major cause of blindness worldwide. Now, EPSRCsupported engineers at the University of Sheffield have developed an improved treatment for stem cell grafts. This could help millions of people retain or regain their sight.

The team have manufactured a biodegradable disc which can be fixed over the cornea. The disc contains stem cells which multiply over time, allowing the eye to heal naturally. Its unique design helps the cells group together so a healthy population is kept in the eye, essential for ongoing repair. Without this, scar tissue can form, causing sight loss or impairment.

healthy eye can be placed. The material across the centre of the disc is thinner than the ring, so it will biodegrade more quickly, allowing the stem cells to proliferate across the surface of the eye to repair the cornea.”

Sheffield’s synthetic membrane will reduce the risk of disease transmission, cost less, and perform better than existing treatments using donated tissue.

Clinical trials will take place in India with university partner, the LV Prasad Eye Institute. The research is also supported by the Wellcome Trust.

Dr Ílida Ortega Asencio (pictured), an EPSRC Early Career Fellow, from Sheffield’s Faculty of Engineering, explains: “The disc has an outer ring containing pockets into which stem cells taken from the patient’s

The gold standard celebrates excellence for early career researchers in engineering, biological and biomedical sciences and physical sciences, and entrants are judged on their ability to convey complex scientific ideas to a nonscientific audience.

Dr Valeska Ting (pictured), a Prize Research Fellow from the University of Bath, was overall winner across all entries at the prestigious 2013 SET for Britain competition for early career stage researchers.

She came away with £3,000 in prize money, the Gold Award for Engineering and the Westminster Medal.

The SET for Britain competition, run by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

Dr Ting carried out postdoctoral work at Bath under the UK Sustainable Energy consortium and also the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells SUPERGEN hub, under the RCUK Energy Programme, which is led by EPSRC. Her research inspired her award-winning SET poster, Pushing Hydrogen to the Limit: engineering nanomaterial systems for storage of solid-like hydrogen.

Hot on Dr Ting’s heels, Dr Paul Richmond, an EPSRC-supported engineer from the University of Sheffield, won the SET for Britain Silver Award and £2,000 prize money for his research poster.

Travelling light EPSRC-sponsored researchers at the University of Greenwich are playing a key role in a €20 million European project which could transform the future of travel and reduce pollution.

The ExoMet project, led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and involving 11 countries and 27 leading companies, aims to use nanoparticle technology to build new, lightweight types of transport, including space vehicles, planes and cars, with components that are also recyclable.

Researchers are investigating replacing heavy steel components with strengthened light alloys or aluminium at less than half the weight, leading to a reduction in fuel and CO2 emissions, as well as major savings in processing costs.

The Greenwich team, led by Professor Koulis Pericleous, are using expertise gained in earlier projects, many of which were funded by EPSRC, to develop mathematical models for ExoMet projects.

Professor Pericleous says: “The complex multi-physics interactions featured in this project, such as fluid flow, heat transfer, sound waves and electromagnetics, can only be handled by a few groups in the world.

Fortunately our group has the necessary expertise, which is why it was chosen.”

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briefings

Sponsored research in action

Water power

Cambridge-based scientists have produced hydrogen from water using an inexpensive catalyst under real-world conditions. The process could mean we are a step closer to developing a new green fuel for cars.

Research leader, Dr Erwin Reisner, an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow, says: “Until now, no inexpensive molecular catalyst was known to evolve hydrogen efficiently in water and in air. However, such conditions are essential for developing green hydrogen as a future energy source.”

The research, which was funded by EPSRC, the Christian Doppler Research Association and the OMV Group, has shown that inexpensive materials such as cobalt are suitable – representing a major step forward in the search for green hydrogen.

Hydrogen is currently produced from fossil fuels, but it produces CO2 as a by-product and so is neither renewable nor clean.

Although hydrogen cannot be used as a direct substitute for gasoline or ethanol, it can be used as a fuel in combination with fuel cells which are already available in cars and buses.

Sound thinking A free mobile app that turns an iPhone or iPod into a personalised hearing aid has been developed by EPSRC-supported researchers at the University of Essex.

The device is inspired by biological processes and replicates the complexities of the human ear.

Unlike standard hearing aids that amplify certain frequencies, BioAid compresses loud sounds and has a choice of six sound settings which users can adjust to match their impairment. It has been developed by Professor Ray Meddis and a team of researchers from the university’s Department of Psychology.

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For people unable to access healthcare the device has the advantage that it can be tried without the need for a hearing test. Users wear earphones when using the app, and with 20 different settings, they can tailor the sounds to suit their hearing.

Professor Ray Meddis says: “As technology advances, we believe BioAid has the potential to radically change future hearing devices – and to genuinely change lives.”

Dr Wendy Lecluyse (pictured) says: “This new device opens up many intriguing research possibilities, allowing scientists to explore new ideas in hearing aid design and how they work in everyday settings.

BioAid can be downloaded from iTunes. bioaid.org.uk

The app has been downloaded by almost 10,000 people in a collaborative user trial.

“We are particularly interested to find out how the preferred setting of each user corresponds with their hearing problem.”

Researcher, Nick Clark, added: “The mobile phone is a great platform for rapidly transferring hearing aid technology from the laboratory to the hands of the public.”

Picture courtesy of the University of Essex

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briefings

Sponsored research in action

Quantum crime busters

Cool fuel Carbon capture and storage is one of the most promising solutions to global warming, but a research team at the University of Bath, co-funded by EPSRC, are looking to realise the potential of stored carbon dioxide as a large-scale and free alternative to fossil fuels.

To date the processes used to create the catalysts needed to convert CO2 have been energy-intensive and therefore costly, and not suitable for use on a large scale.

Dr Matthew Jones, from the university’s Department of Chemistry, says: “Our method is considerably more simple than traditional techniques. We use the same catalyst at both stages of the process, which means energy and time aren’t required to purify the carbon support, and the process can take place far more quickly.

“This makes our process scaleable to a level where it could be used in industry and have a significant impact on the environment.”

e-crime is estimated to cost £205 million every year in the UK retail sector alone.

But in a move that could help put online fraudsters worldwide out of business, a team of EPSRC-supported physicists at the University of Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt University are using quantum physics to crack down on internet fraud.

The systems which currently underpin the security of internet transactions, known as digital signatures, are founded on complex mathematical formulae. These can be cracked and are therefore vulnerable to e-crime.

Heriot-Watt’s Professor Gerald Buller says: “Using quantum mechanics rather than just maths to create signatures for multiple recipients/customers, could make hacking, fraud and theft near-impossible.”

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In the world of infinite possibilities that is quantum physics, elementary particles such as photons (the fundamental particles of light) can behave either like a wave or like a particle, and can effectively exist in a number of states at the same time.

The team also hopes to explore the use of waste heat from power plants to run the process. Project leader, Dr Davide Mattia, says: “By using waste heat we can further reduce the energy required by our method, and in the future it could even become carbon neutral.”

The team have shown how the fundamental uncertainty obtained in a result when measuring certain properties of photons can be used to verify the authenticity of any transaction or communication with an unbreakable digital signature.

Malevolent third parties are thus prevented from ‘listening in’ to the transaction and are unable to fake a signed message to send to multiple recipients.

The process takes place without shoppers having to make changes to their normal security precautions.

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Attention to detail: A finite element mesh of an open-cell foam.

Pure and simple Simpleware, a company set up to commercialise EPSRC-supported research at the University of Exeter, has won The Queen’s Award for Enterprise for the second year running.

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Image: Simpleware.com

Founded in 2003 by Professor Philippe Young, Simpleware’s pioneering software converts 3D image data into high-quality computer models used for engineering design and simulation. The technology has been applied across a host of disciplines and industries – from mobile phones to car engines; asphalt damage to back pain, contact lenses to hearing aids.

The software is underpinned by patented techniques developed and improved with the aid of EPSRC funding to the extent that it can now facilitate a previously unattainable level of realism in 3D simulations.

The 2013 Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade recognises the company’s growth in overseas earnings, PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

and complements its 2012 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation, awarded to companies that have demonstrated commercial success through innovative products or services.

Over the last six years, Simpleware’s exports contributed 81 per cent of total turnover, with overseas sales growth of 690 per cent.

More than 90 per cent of sales are to bluechip companies, research institutes and universities from countries all over the world, including NASA and the US Naval Research Laboratory.

The company’s global export markets include the USA, the EU, China and Canada. Strong re-selling networks are also being established in India, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Professor Young, an Associate Professor of Engineering at the University of Exeter, says: “The ability to generate robust and accurate numerical models from various sources of image data has started a revolution in the world of multi-physics simulation.

“The level of accuracy now possible is allowing us to more closely replicate what is happening in the real world and is ultimately opening doors for the research to progress even further.

“The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade is the icing on the cake after several years of strong growth.”

www.simpleware.com

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Space man

Dr Who has a smartphone that can call Earth from space, but the Time Lord may have met his match in the form of an EPSRC-supported team at Surrey Space Centre, at the University of Surrey, who have launched a satellite based on a smartphone you can buy on the high street.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), which was set up in 1985 to commercialise EPSRC-funded research led at the University of Surrey, is a key partner in the STRaND-1 project. The company made its reputation for building high performance satellites and ground systems for a fraction of the price normally associated with space missions.

SSTL, which was sold in 2008 to space technology giant EADS Astrium for £40 million, continues to work closely with the University of Surrey. The company’s size and reputation continue to soar. Today, with 300 staff, SSTL is the world’s leading small satellite company, with export sales of over £150 million. The company’s Group Executive Chairman is Professor Sir Martin Sweeting FRS, who founded SSTL.

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The logic is that smartphones already contain much of what a satellite needs, such as cameras, radio links, accelerometers and high performance computer processors.

In a world-first space mission that’s destined to make space exploration more accessible, the research team, led by Dr Chris Bridges (pictured above), in collaboration with Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), have developed the STRaND-1 nano-satellite – made from an unmodified Google Nexus smartphone.

The satellite made its maiden voyage aboard the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, and is currently orbiting the Earth at around 16,000 miles per hour. It will be the first test of whether commercial elements and components found in everyday devices can survive in the extreme conditions experienced in space.

Weighing only 3.5 kilos and standing 34 centimetres tall, the satellite relies on offthe-shelf consumer technology.

Chris says: “If a regular smartphone can be proved to work in space, it opens up lots of new technologies to a multitude of people and companies unable to afford the astronomic sums it currently takes to get their products into space. It’s a real gamechanger for the industry.

“Thanks to the investment and research global companies put in to develop smartphones and games consoles, we know these devices are pretty robust. We were able to test our phone’s durability by subjecting it to oven and freezer temperatures, placing it in a vacuum and blasting it with radiation. It has a good chance of working as it should.

“By using everyday components, we can make satellites smaller, lighter, cheaper and more quickly than ever before.” It took the Surrey project team just three months to assemble STRaND-1.

The research is significant across the wider engineering spectrum, as the techniques and methodologies developed by the team

can be applied in a host of different areas, from subsea environments to the car industry.

In 2009, following his EPSRC-funded PhD at the University of Surrey, Chris was selected for the EPSRC PhD Plus scheme, now known as the EPSRC Doctoral Prize, which provides an additional one-year’s funding to support the most able, talented and promising PhD students. Follow-on EPSRC funding led to Chris taking the lead on the STRaND-1 project, interacting with industry and the world-wide media.

Chris says: “EPSRC funding has allowed me time to develop my ideas and help launch a successful career in research and teaching. It’s not many that can say they’ve designed, built, programmed and operated a spacecraft by the time they’re 30. With my previous EPSRC funding – plus the support of my colleagues at Surrey – I aim to have a greater impact on future missions.”

Chris is now a lecturer in on-board data handling at the University of Surrey. He plans to advance his research into the area of future computing for hostile and safetycritical environments in sectors such as aircraft, aerospace and medical equipment.

EPSRC DOCTORAL PRIZE EPSRC Doctoral Prizes help universities retain and recruit the best EPSRCsupported PhD students to increase the impact of their PhD. Under the terms of the prize, universities may allocate 10 per cent of their EPSRC Doctoral Training Grant budget to support the most promising students for a further two years at the end of their PhD course.

Students are selected on academic merit and research potential.

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Photograph courtesy of Queen’s University Belfast

Pursuit of excel

Professor Eileen Harkin-Jones, from Queen’s University Belfast, on EPSRC funding and support; the peer review process – and dealing with rejection.

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llence Professor Eileen Harkin-Jones appreciates the value of EPSRC funding and support.

She says: “It’s difficult to get; it’s highlyprized and is the most sought-after funding we in the UK research community aspire to.”

There is a flip-side, of course, which is when a grant proposal is turned down, but for Eileen, who is based at the university’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, rejection goes with the territory.

She says: “It’s always disappointing to have a proposal rejected when you have invested significant time and effort in preparing it.

But you have to accept the decision and get on with building a better case for the next submission.

“EPSRC expects proposals to be substantially changed before they are resubmitted, so it’s vital when you’re putting your revised proposal together that you ask yourself questions such as: ‘what was missing from the original application, and what should I be doing differently; what kind of expertise and capability should I be building-in, and should I consider taking the research in a slightly different direction?’

“Another important factor to consider is whether the research can be improved through new academic collaborations, or with new industrial partners. EPSRC likes to see this kind of multi-institution, multidisciplinary research – and for good reason. One person working alone is never ideal. You really need the expertise of a number of different people. That way you get an outcome that really is greater than the sum of its parts.”

EPSRC receives and processes several thousand grant proposals each year. Each application undergoes the same peer review process, and applications are only supported if they are deemed excellent as judged through peer review. Eileen says: “In order to fund the best research it is essential to have a transparent, fair and expert-driven

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review system. I believe the current EPSRC system of evaluation of research proposals by three or four independent experts, coupled with the applicant’s right to reply, is quite robust and I am confident that I get a fair hearing when I submit a proposal.”

Most EPSRC peer reviewers and panel members are selected from a 4,000-strong college broadly representing the research community, including both universities and industry. Funding decisions are based solely on the reviewers’ comments.

Eileen has widespread experience as a peer review panel member, in the UK, Ireland, Norway and Canada. She says: “When I’m invited to sit on a panel, two thoughts go through my head. How will I fit in the work required to prepare properly for the panel meeting and, do I want to miss the opportunity to read some interesting science and engineering proposals and meet up with new panel members? The latter usually prevails and I accept the invitation.

“The very first panel meeting I sat on put to bed any questions I had about the robustness of the process – for example, when it came to ranking proposals in order of merit. I left the meeting with a sense that the right decisions had been made and in a democratic manner. Subsequent panel meetings have only served to reinforce this.

I would strongly recommend that college members take the opportunity to serve on a panel if invited to do so.

“When applying for a grant, the process is the same for all researchers; but a grant proposal isn’t just about following the right procedures and ticking the right boxes. It’s about having the right mindset. In order to win the funding, you have to show you have an excellent plan of research. It has to be novel and it has to be adventurous.

“Once a project is funded by EPSRC, they really let you get on with it, with a minimum amount of interference and bureaucracy.”

The right stuff Professor Eileen Harkin-Jones is at the forefront of new research into polymer nanocomposite materials. She is leading a major EPSRC-funded academic/ industrial project to develop a new generation of lightweight packaging materials that will reduce raw material consumption while helping minimise processing and transportation costs.

Working with leading packaging companies, she and her team at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) are looking at ways to incorporate superstrong nanoparticles into the polymers used in the packaging material.

Eileen says: “The key is to disperse and align the nanoparticles within the polymer (a kind of plastic) in a controlled manner. If we achieve this we will have made exceptional improvements in mechanical and gas barrier properties – making the packaging far stronger and resistant to contamination while at the same time making it lighter.”

Eileen’s work has wide-ranging potential. For example, incorporating nanoparticles of ‘wonder material’ graphene or carbon nanotubes into a polymer could lead to a new generation of plastics that can conduct electricity.

These new plastic composites are part of a joint project with two QUB colleagues, pharmacist Professor David Jones and electrical engineer Dr David Linton, to make bacteria-resistant medical devices.

This project is an object example of multidisciplinary working, and the team hope to use the results that arise from it as pilot data for an application for EPSRC funding in the very near future.

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Engineering the From roads and railways to energy and telecommunications networks, the UK’s infrastructure is a complex and interlinked ‘system of systems’.

But scarcity of resources, a rising population and ageing utilities are all putting huge pressure on our current systems.

Meeting these challenges will require innovative research coupled with major public and private sector investment. EPSRC Chief Executive, Professor David Delpy, and Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, outline the options and opportunities facing the UK. Professor David Delpy: Infrastructure as ecosystem A society’s infrastructure is an ecosystem, highly complex and interlinked. It has components that have developed over time as well as more dynamic elements that are constantly renewed.

Much of the UK’s hard physical infrastructure, its roads, railways and utilities, has been built up over the last two centuries. These were clearly well-built and built to last.

However, the country has grown and changed; investment in what could be called the skeleton that supports our economy is now needed and overdue.

But infrastructure is not just the visible structures like highways, it has many layers – communications networks, energy production, storage and transmission, knowledge transfer and learning and skills development, to name just a few. Like the systems of a human body, these perform their own tasks, but are interdependent and act collectively to form the whole.

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Understanding these relationships is a key challenge for researchers, planners and government.

There are demands for greener energy; better building design; smarter, faster communications and better skills in our workforce. How can we meet these, and how will our solutions affect the texture and fabric of our society and infrastructure?

The scale and potential longevity of these structures is such that we have to look beyond the short term, we have to plan properly and, as we plan, we must look to several possible futures.

Developing new infrastructure presents opportunities to stimulate growth and create jobs domestically, but it also gives the UK’s academic base and world-leading companies the chance to demonstrate their innovative thinking, leadership and skills to global markets in areas such as infrastructure development, planning and construction.

EPSRC supports around 350 research projects, worth more than £350 million, that relate to infrastructure across engineering and physical sciences, from fundamental research to applied activities.

A case in point is our recent £39 million investment, together with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and industry, in five End Use Energy Demand research centres to look into the complexities of energy use across society. A further £6 million has been set aside for research into how to apply digital technologies to reduce energy demand in buildings.

Other new investments in partnership with ESRC include two research centres that will look at innovative new business models for infrastructure interdependencies.

The centres will create a shared, facilitated learning environment in which social scientists, engineers, industrialists, policymakers and other stakeholders can learn how better to exploit the technical and market opportunities that emerge from the increased interdependence of infrastructure systems.

In an increasingly wired world, we recognise the importance of support for research into the digital economy, which is why we are funding centres such as the Digital City Exchange at Imperial College London, which is researching how to digitally link utilities

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future and services within a city, creating new technical and business opportunities.

To identify and defeat threats posed by cyber fraud on the information technologies that are vital for our economic wellbeing, we have, in partnership with the security services and government, invested in two new research institutes for cyber security.

The centres will advise on how best to secure systems against cyber threat and also on safe exploitation of the possibilities the virtual world offers. This collaborative approach between academia, industry and government will ensure that research is relevant and inspired by real world, cuttingedge, security issues.

Just as we all need regular medical checkups, the Innovation and Knowledge Centre on Smart Infrastructure and Construction at the University of Cambridge, which is funded by EPSRC, the Technology Strategy Board and industry, is using research into sensors and data management to monitor the behaviour of ageing infrastructure such as London’s Underground system. Using innovative manufacturing processes, the project aims to bring more efficient, sustainable and economic construction methods and processes to new infrastructure.

national infrastructure systems and related themes including energy use in buildings and transport, energy storage and water.

The Government’s National Infrastructure Plan 2011, which sets out the priority infrastructure investments, is beginning to address the issues I have outlined; and the research community has a key role to play in injecting new ideas and technologies that will both shape and inform the infrastructure projects of the future – producing scientific and engineering solutions that will bring benefits to tomorrow’s world, both here and abroad.

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By definition, infrastructure is a long-term challenge, requiring a steady stream of highly-skilled experts in their respective fields. To this end EPSRC invests over £250 million a year in developing the research leaders of tomorrow.

Our investments include dedicated centres for PhD training and tailored fellowship packages for senior researchers. Many of these investments are linked to addressing the complex infrastructure demands of the future.

For example, we recently funded a Centre for Doctoral Training in Urban Sustainability and Resilience at University College London.

Earlier this year we announced we would be investing a further £350 million in new Centres for Doctoral Training (see page 3); many will address priority areas such as PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

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Rt Hon David Willetts MP: Global challenges, big opportunities Global infrastructure in the 21st century is facing unprecedented demand. Scarcity of resources and clean water, rising population, migration to cities and climate change are all putting huge pressure on our current systems.

Globalisation has stretched capacity with regard to airports, roads and rail. But these pressures also create big opportunities.

Solutions to the global infrastructure challenges will differ, but those countries investing in creative and ambitious projects will stand to benefit most. Great Britain’s strong industrial heritage puts us at a great advantage.

Public investment in infrastructure is vital. An estimated £310 billion-plus has been identified by 2015 and beyond, which will need to be underpinned by a regulatory framework providing the certainty investors need to take risks in developing new systems.

The Government’s National Infrastructure Plan 2011 identified a pipeline of more than 500 projects and programmes, including 40 priority projects, such as highways, rail, telecommunications and energy. Most are progressing well and meeting their delivery timetables. The Government has also pledged to increase its capital investment by £3 billion a year from 2015-2016.

Furthermore, in September last year Business Secretary Vince Cable, outlined the Government’s vision for an industrial strategy, which is vital to our national infrastructure.

science and research base. The £5.5 billion infrastructure package announced in the Autumn Statement 2012 included a £600 million injection of capital investment for this purpose.

Key aspects of the industrial strategy include technological innovation, forging partnerships with particular sectors, such as the construction industry, and maintaining a pipeline of skilled scientists and engineers – through school programmes, apprenticeships and postgraduate training.

Infrastructure is not just roads and railways, it is also the networks and systems supplying energy, water and waste, financial services and information technology. Interdependent sectors within a ‘system of systems’.

EPSRC is an important funder of this area of infrastructure research, and is building a scientific capability to ensure the UK can respond to challenges across the infrastructure chain. For example, it is working in partnership with the Energy Technologies Institute on a £100 million first-of-its-kind smart energy system that will be used by companies to develop products based on consumer patterns.

Postgraduate training is also a priority for EPSRC, which is why it is investing in new Centres for Doctoral Training in areas such as national infrastructure systems, energy use in buildings, transport, energy storage and water.

None of this would be possible without investment in another kind of infrastructure – the facilities and buildings underpinning the UK’s world-class

An example of this in action will be the fixed telecommunications link along the path of the HS2 high speed rail link from London to Birmingham, potentially saving millions of pounds through shared engineering costs.

Other such ‘infrastructure corridors’ are also being investigated.

Developing, sustaining and integrating Britain’s infrastructure is an increasing challenge, but I believe we are very much up to the job.

Through sustained investment coupled with the expertise of our world-class research base and cuttingedge businesses, we will build future resilience while ensuring our systems are sustainable and can adapt to social and environmental changes.

EPSRC is an important funder of infrastructure research, and is building a scientific capability to ensure the UK can respond to challenges across the infrastructure chain

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MAJOR EPSRC-SUPPORTED INFRASTRUCTURE RESEARCH PROJECTS Infrastructure Business Model Centres: EPSRC and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are co-investing £7 million in two Infrastructure Business Model Centres at Newcastle University and University College London.

The centres will create a shared learning environment for social scientists, engineers, industrialists, policymakers and other stakeholders to understand how better to exploit the technical and market opportunities that emerge from the increased interdependence of infrastructure systems, and to develop innovative business models for UK firms wishing to exploit national and international markets.

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EPSRC infrastructure-related research projects

Sustainable Urban Environment Programme (SUE): Integrated project planning is vital for complex infrastructure networks, and EPSRC-funded projects such as Urban Futures, one of the activities under the £45 million SUE programme, and Liveable Cities, a collaboration between four universities, are looking at how cities can be constructed and planned, taking a long view of sustainability, managing natural resources and reducing carbon use.

£350m

invested by EPSRC in infrastructure-related research

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The Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC): A partnership between seven UK universities that supports analysis and planning of national infrastructure systems. Its research addresses the major challenges facing the energy, transport, water, waste and ICT systems sectors.

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organisations collaborating with EPSRC on infrastructure projects The LANCS Initiative: A collaboration between four universities, Lancaster, Nottingham, Cardiff and Southampton, that is developing understanding of complex systems, including those in the transport and logistics sector.

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EPSRC-sponsored postgraduate students training in infrastructurerelated areas Researchers at the University of Cambridge have been working with industrial and academic partners to tackle some of the uncertainties associated with air traffic and the risks these pose to heavily loaded airports. They have also developed award-winning technology that uses radio tags to track baggage as it passes through the airport system.

Mapping the Underworld: This 10-year multidisciplinary research programme, first funded in 2005, is investigating the use of multisensory location tools to locate underground utilities, such as water pipes and electricity cables; it is also researching whether accurate 3D maps could be created to aid developers. The results of the research have attracted international interest and are feeding into new standards of training for utility mapping.

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of student grants funded by EPSRC are directly relevant to infrastructure Transforming the Engineering of Cities to Deliver Societal and Planetary Wellbeing: This project aims to create an holistic, integrated, multidisciplinary city analysis methodology.

The project uniquely integrates wellbeing indicators and is founded on an evidence base of trials of radical interventions in cities, with a view to developing the realistic and radical engineering solutions necessary to achieve its vision.

£105m contributed by industry for EPSRC-supported infrastructure research

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The system system From clever flood warning software to systems to make rail travel safer and more efficient, EPSRC supports over 350 infrastructure-related projects.

Here’s a snapshot of some of them.

Slope alarms

Brain drain

Researchers at the University of Loughborough have developed an award-winning early warning system to warn of landslides.

EPSRC-sponsored researchers from the University of Exeter have developed a smart computer model which can rapidly predict when and where flooding will occur. The model is 1,000 times faster than existing flood prediction systems and uses artificial intelligence to ‘learn’, in the same way that biological neural networks in the human brain process data.

Thought to be the first of its kind in the world, the system uses a network of sensors buried across a hillside or embankment that presents a risk of collapse. The sensors, acting as microphones in the subsoil, record the acoustic activity of the soil across the slope and each transmits a signal to a central computer for analysis.

The system could have life-saving implications for countries prone to disastrous landslides, and could also be employed in developed countries such as the UK. The project won the Civil Engineering Award at The Engineer magazine’s Technology and Innovation Awards 2011.

Graphene goes high speed Wonder material graphene, the strongest, thinnest material on Earth with incredible qualities as an electrical conductor, could dramatically boost broadband internet speed, say EPSRC-sponsored researchers.

By combining graphene with metallic nanostructures, the scientists, from Manchester and Cambridge universities, have shown a 20-fold enhancement in harvesting light by graphene, which paves the way for advances in high-speed internet and other communications essential for the evolution of modern infrastructure.

Graphene was isolated in 2004 by EPSRC-sponsored scientists André Geim and Konastantin Novoselov, who were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics for their work.

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Designed for urban areas, the system can provide instant updates as bad weather conditions unfold. The model uses information about the drainage and sewage systems to predict the volume and flow of flood water in real time. Although not yet in general use, it is hoped the model will soon be rolled out nationwide.

Air care A team from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London are using sophisticated mathematics to determine the most fuel efficient ways for aircraft to land at busy airports.

Many aircraft occupying a small space require coordination to land using the least amount of fuel, and Professor Jan Maciejowski and Dr Alison Eele are creating a new mathematical system to optimise the landing trajectories of each plane manoeuvring between the airport and up to 10,000 feet in the sky.

Their formulae use thousands of processors to combine location measurements by radar, work out the flight plan for landing, give instructions and then recalculate every few seconds.

Although the project is a long way from implementation, it has reached proof-ofconcept stage, and initial talks have begun with industry.

Professor Maciejowski says: “I’ve been delighted by how positively airport operators have reacted already. It’s a sign of the times – airports are running at capacity and it’s becoming a matter of urgency to look at how systems can be improved.”

UK-China smart energy grid EPSRC-supported scientists from the UK and China are co-developing state-of-theart hybrid communications technology to create low-cost, low-carbon smart electricity networks.

Building a smarter grid is all about adding computer and communications technology to the existing electricity grid and also accommodating new energies such as solar and wind power.

With matched-resource funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the team hope the research will enable the grid to operate more efficiently and more reliably – and so save both countries energy and money.

Bogie lights EPSRC-supported researchers at the University of Huddersfield are helping to shape the future of train design through a project to help make passenger trains cheaper and lighter.

The research aims to establish whether lighter bogies, the frames that hold the vehicle’s wheels and suspension, could be developed for use on passenger trains.

As passenger trains are designed to have a life of more than 30 years, aggregated cost savings from using lighter components could be considerable.

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Pipeline power Award-winning technology developed by Syrinix, a company set up to commercialise EPSRC-sponsored research at the University of East Anglia, has developed ‘listening’ technology that can help reduce the 3.3 billion litres of treated water lost every day in the UK by making maintenance more cost-effective.

The technology uses vibro-acoustic signals from the water mains pipe and analyses these sounds to enable leaks to be detected in their early stages and pinpoint their location.

The TrunkMinder system analyses information from sensors located along the pipeline. A small leak makes a distinctive sound which changes as it increases in size and severity.

and environmental performance of railway track. Professor Powrie predicts “farreaching implications: reduced costs, increased capacity and improved reliability.”

Future moves

Making rail travel more reliable

The four-year FUTURENET project, led by Birmingham University and jointly funded

by EPSRC and the Economic and Social Research Council, aims to provide the tools and advice needed to assess and plan for transport systems in the future.

EPSRC-sponsored researchers at City University London are collaborating with industry to develop optical sensors that detect when overhead railway power lines are likely to fail.

Professor Tong Sun, co-leader of the project, says: “Significant ‘dewirements’ occur approximately five times a year in the UK, rendering tracks unusable until the overhead system is repaired.

The future resilience of the UK transport network depends on technology and infrastructure changes, and on ways to tackle climate and extreme weather events.

The team is developing transport demand scenarios, case studies and climate and weather models that might affect transport systems of the future.

The work will help government, transport planners, managers and engineers to improve their decision making with regard to anticipated changes in climate, technology, social behaviour and economies.

The system is able to identify the signals created by leaking water and monitor these over time, creating a body of intelligence about the health of the network.

“The resulting interruption to journeys costs many millions of pounds, both to the rail industry and the wider economy.

Firm foundations

This level of detail and accuracy has been hitherto unfeasible since traditional electrical sensors would be affected by the high voltages carried by such equipment.

The internet industry is worth an estimated £100 billion to the UK. EPSRC is investing £7.2 million in research that could revolutionise the internet, making it much faster and more efficient.

Hole story

The Photonics HyperHighway project brings together scientists from the universities of Southampton and Essex as well as industry partners to develop new materials and devices to increase internet bandwidth.

A partnership between EPSRC-sponsored researchers at the University of Nottingham and Roger Bullivant Ltd has pioneered a process that turns the foundation piles of new buildings into heat exchangers for ground source heat pumps – with the potential to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The academic/industrial project won the Manufacturing & Process Innovation Category at The Engineer magazine’s 2010 Technology & Innovation Awards.

Track stars A team of world-leading scientists led by Professor William Powrie, of the University of Southampton, and involving academics from the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham, are working with key industry players to provide the science needed to underpin a radical overhaul in techniques for railway track design, construction and maintenance.

The Track 21 team are focusing on areas such as ballast, sleepers, noise, vibration, and economic and energy costs, with a view to developing a comprehensive understanding of the engineering, economic PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

“Our aim is to spot when a failure is likely and enable rail operators to carry out preventative maintenance.”

The total road length of the UK is an estimated 245,000 miles. Maintaining and rehabilitating the nation’s highways, while sustaining undisturbed traffic flows, places increased emphasis on the need for highperformance and increasingly more durable road-building materials, particularly asphalt.

Net gains

Project leader Professor Sir David Payne, says: “Our ambition is nothing less than to rebuild the internet hardware to suit it to the needs of 21st century Britain.”

The most important factor influencing the durability of asphalt mixtures is the presence of water, which can eventually lead to the costly failure of the road structure.

An EPSRC-supported research project led by Professor Andrew Collop from De Montfort University are using 3D X-ray images of the asphalt’s internal microstructure. The findings have led to unprecedented insight into the understanding of moistureinduced damage of asphalt systems, and could lead to new practices for the industry, a significant reduction in maintenance costs and greater sustainability.

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Cutting edge

This stunning closeup photograph of a single grain of salt was captured by EPSRC-sponsored PhD student, Hollie Rosier (pictured), while researching jet engine operations.

Hollie, whose PhD in Structural Metallic Systems for Gas Turbine Applications at Swansea University is jointly funded by EPSRC and Rolls-Royce, says: “When seawater evaporates it can lead to salt in the atmosphere. When exposed to extremely high temperatures inside a jet engine of up to 1,500 degrees Celcius, the salt can form on key components within the engine, potentially accelerating corrosion.

“Reproducing these conditions in a laboratory helps us gain a greater understanding of the corrosion effect and could lead to a change in the way key components of an engine are designed.”

With the global market for jet engines over the next 20 years predicted to be worth $975 billion, this research into more efficient, longer-lasting jet engines could contribute significantly to both UK economic growth and global carbon reduction targets.

The training aspect of EPSRC’s Strategic Partnership with Rolls-Royce is helping meet the demand for highly-skilled PhD holders in areas such as aerospace.

The training is tailored so that students can spend extended periods working in industry and on outcome-based projects.

This enables students to develop valuable skills – significantly enhancing their future employability. Many will become research leaders within academia or industry.

Hollie’s salt photograph was overall winner of the Research as Art competition, organised by Dr Richard Johnston at Swansea University and open to researchers across disciplines at all stages in their careers at the university.

Photograph courtesy of Hollie Rosier

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The salt picture was taken using a highpowered microscope. Hollie says: “The salt grain, which measures just two millimetres across, is a mixture of sodium sulphate and sodium chloride, recrystallised to create its unique and unusual appearance.”

The Research as Art competition is supported by the EPSRC-funded Bridging the Gaps initiative, which enables researchers to create a programme of activities to stimulate creative thinking across disciplines.

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o b n r a yarns C

Words: Matt Shinn

Imagine a super-stong, super-light material three times tougher than Kevlar that also conducts heat and electricity. If such a material existed it would have a host of potential uses – from near-impenetrable body armour to super-safe, super-light automobile designs. Well, such a material is one step closer to commercial reality – carbon nanotube fibre – which begins its life as a mist of carbon particles, floating in the air.

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We’ve known for some time that, on the nano-scale, carbon exhibits many of these super-light, super-tough, conductive properties – especially graphite, and especially when it is formed into tiny cylinders, called nanotubes, which measure just a few billionths of a metre across.

The problem has always been in fitting these nanotubes together so that they keep

their lightness, toughness and excellent conductivity, yet form big enough bits for us to make something useful out of them.

Alan Windle, Professor of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge, has done just that, producing a fibre that – at least in some short lengths – is the toughest the world has ever seen.

With the help of a three-year grant from EPSRC, he has developed a process that involves creating an ‘elastic smoke’ consisting of carbon nanotubes grown on tiny floating iron catalysts. The process involves super-heating a ‘feedstock’, such

as ethanol, which breaks down inside the furnace into carbon and hydrogen.

The carbon then reforms around the iron catalysts as tiny cylinders, or nanotubes.

The carbon particles hang in the air like smoke, but because the nanotubes are tangled up with each other, they look more like a black ‘sock’ than a shapeless cloud.

And from this floating mass, long strands can then be drawn out using a specially designed machine.

Professor Windle had already published a paper in the journal Science on how the process can work, and he and his team

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Image: Shutterstock.com

(Continued from previous page) had demonstrated that carbon nanotube fibre could be made in the lab.

“I can still remember the afternoon when we came up with a way of producing it,” he says. “I thought: ‘if we can wind this stuff out continuously, then we’re really on to something’.”

But a lot still needed to be understood before Professor Windle and his team could talk to potential industrial sponsors, who might find uses for the new material. That’s where the EPSRC grant came in – getting the underpinning science to the point where the process could be scaled-up.

For Professor Windle’s team, the grant helped to refine the process of making carbon nanotube fibre, to the point where industrial sponsors could have much greater confidence in it – developing an understanding, for example, of why a little touch of sulfur is essential in stringing the nanotubes together.

Along the way, the team became a hot-bed for developing talent in this area, with several PhD students going on to professorships, including Milo Shaffer at Imperial and Ian Kinloch at the University of Manchester, or to run their own nanotech companies.

The grant was awarded jointly to Professor Windle’s team and to a team from Edinburgh Napier University, who were focusing on toxicology, and trying to anticipate any possible health problems associated with carbon nanotubes.

Already, industrial uses are being found for the new fibre, first through a joint venture between Cambridge University spin-out company Q-Flo, which Professor Windle cofounded, and an Israeli company that makes body armour.

This precautionary approach has led the Napier team to work with the Health and Safety Executive on the writing of control regulations for the handling of carbon nanotubes.

Unlike other forms of carbon fibre, carbon nanotube fibres can be woven together, so the new material can be made into fabrics that are extremely good at absorbing the energy from a projectile or an explosion. It

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may be some time, though, before we see it being put to other uses. Professor Windle says: “The point about a new material is that it’s not a new widget or piece of software – it’s a much longer burn to get something you can sell. It has to be both better and cheaper than what there was before.

“Potentially at least, we know that carbon nanotube fibre, which can be produced using a single, relatively simple process, should be significantly cheaper than equivalents that are currently available. But to really begin using this stuff you need a company of multinational scale, that can invest in half a billion dollars’ worth of plant.”

Some of the more ambitious applications of carbon nanotube fibre may be a way off, then. But Professor Windle’s team are learning how to control the production process better, so that they can make fibre of the same quality every day. They can now make it by the kilometer. Already they’ve got it out of the lab and into industrial scale up, and most of the world’s major industrial players in fibres are watching closely.

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Carbon nanotubes – the hole story Carbon nanotubes are tiny cylinders of graphite, a few billionths of a metre across.

Join millions of them together and you get a unique form of carbon fibre. Traditional carbon fibre is very strong but also brittle, in bending making it difficult to use, but carbon nanotube fibre is much tougher. Crucially it can be used like a yarn – you can weave it together, and even tie a knot in it without weakening it.

The next big thing?

The list of potential applications for carbon nanotube fibre is almost endless, from making indestructible sports equipment to bomb-proof containers on aeroplanes.

As well as its enormous strength, carbon nanotube fibre has greater thermal conductivity than any other fibre, and it conducts electricity too, meaning that it could be made into an ultra-thin VDU screen, or even clothes that can light up.

Which of these potential uses are the most realistic? Professor Alan Windle says: “It’s probably going to hit big-time first in a niche area, such as moving heat inside electronic equipment, where it can be sold at a high price.”

Image: Shutterstock.com

The space elevator – science fiction meets science fact The idea of a ‘space elevator’ has been around for decades: tether a satellite to the Earth and you can pull payloads up the connecting cable and put them into orbit, without the need for large rockets.

With carbon nanotube fibre, have we finally found a cable light enough and tough enough to do the job? Alas no, it seems – at least not for the time being.

Professor Windle says: “The strength required for a cable to tether a geostationary satellite has been calculated, and the strength of an individual nanotube would be just about enough. The trick, though, would be to make a length of fibre, and then a cable, with a strength as good as each of its component nanotubes.

Also, If we achieved even a quarter the required strength in a cable, the world would be beating a path to our door, for a host of other applications.

“Then there’s the small matter of making the 60,000 miles or so of cable that would be needed. I don’t think anyone has ever made a continuous cable of that length, out of anything!”

Image: Shutterstock.com

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In good company Dr Robert Sorrell, Associate Director of the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials (BP-ICAM), a 10-year, $100 million international investment at four universities, describes the importance of maintaining strong links between industry and academia, gives an insight into the BP-ICAM advanced materials programme, and reflects

Photography: Mark Mallett

on his career.

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Your PhD was supported by EPSRC. How has it influenced your career?

I really enjoyed my PhD at Cambridge.

I learnt an enormous amount, including the know-how to operate the diverse equipment needed to characterise the materials I was making. The PhD also taught me the importance of teamwork and how to demonstrate the relevance of your work within a broader context.

One thing I learnt, which was directly transferrable to the industrial environment, was how to understand the system you are working in and then modify it to work better.

Does BP actively recruit PhD-holders?

We employ researchers from a range of backgrounds – from first degree through to PhDs. Technology is vital to address the challenges we face as an industry in the transition to a more sustainable energy future. The availability of high quality science, technology, mathematics and engineering (STEM) graduates and postgraduates is critical to addressing these challenges.

What role is BP playing in leading the way towards a low-carbon future?

BP’s Energy Outlook 2030 indicates that over the next 20 years world demand for energy will increase by nearly 40 per cent.

That means the world will need access to all forms of energy, including fossil fuels and renewables, if it is to meet those needs. While we are primarily an oil and gas company, we have a large biofuels business with major assets in Brazil, the UK and the US, and we see this making a growing contribution from a sustainability and lower carbon perspective.

Why is it important for a company like BP to work with universities?

We recognise we can accelerate the pace change of technology and learning in partnership with others. Three out of BP’s seven major research centres are based in the UK and these form an important part of our innovation ecosystem. We can point to these academic partnerships, such as the BP Institute at the University of Cambridge, which was established in 2001, and show that they really have added enormous value.

Partnerships with universities bring together really exciting major challenges we have in industry with great minds in academia. The university teams want to push the limits and they are fascinated to see the limits we’re trying to reach. In the oil industry, for example, we need materials that can PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

withstand pressures of 20,000 pounds per square inch and temperatures of 350 degrees Fahrenheit. That gets academic teams excited and it gets us excited. We look to build these long-term, open and trusting relationships and out of that come extraordinary things.

What opportunities do today’s PhD students have that you wish had been available when you did your PhD?

Why has BP chosen to support research into advanced materials through its $100 million investment in the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials (BP-ICAM)?

Today, the training you get from an EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training, for example, which provides a mix of professional and research skills with interpersonal skills and an understanding of the broader context of your work, is really important for your future career (see page 3). We’re often looking to recruit specialised PhD students with a deep understanding of their discipline. The fact that they also come with a package of complementary skills is very valuable.

By investing in advanced materials research, we create the underpinning technologies that have applications across all our business activities.

The BP-ICAM will deepen our fundamental understanding of materials science related to challenges our industry is facing – such as the need for better structural materials and smarter coatings – so that our oil recovery, process and conversion technologies can operate safely and efficiently in increasingly demanding industrial environments.

We also need new generations of industrial membranes to address the many challenges faced around industrial separation processes – such as those used in desalination, oil extraction and processing, and in the separation of chemicals from water.

The BP-ICAM research also involves the spectrum of existing materials, such as steel, whose performance we are continuing to enhance. We are making new alloys of steel along with hybrid and composite materials. So, in effect, steel is an advanced material.

When I went for a job interview at BP after my PhD one thing that was really critical for securing the role was an understanding of the broader context of my work.

There is an amazing diversity of opportunity in the energy industry right now. We’re going through unparalleled change, and the CDTs can link to industry to give students a better sense of what these opportunities are and excite them about potential future careers, both in industry and academia.

What is your proudest achievement?

If I can be allowed two: being part of a successful close-knit team that worked on the successful commissioning of one of BP’s major plants in Hull was a great experience for a chemist at the start of his career in industry. Taking the idea of establishing an advanced materials centre from concept to delivery has to be the other one.

We’re also working on advanced materials to develop the bioscience needed to support our biofuels activities.

You sit on the board of the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). What are the mutual benefits of membership?

The UK has world-class R&D capability and I wanted to get involved in seeing how bodies like the TSB could support the translation of this world-class science into great technology. I am also interested in how we educate people to have the entrepreneurial skills to do this. I am a non-executive director of a small company in Cambridge, so I know very well what it’s like to operate in the SME world. This experience is helping me develop my own business acumen and also helps me understand what I need to do to translate science in the BP-ICAM into great practical applications.

Dr Robert Sorrell is BP’s Vice President for Public Partnerships, BP’s Technology Policy Adviser for the UK and EU and a Policy Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy.

He is Associate Director of the BP International Centre for Advanced Materials, a $100 million international investment at four universities: the University of Manchester, Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He is a former member of the Strategic Advisory Committee for the RCUK Energy Programme, led by EPSRC, and a mentor on EPSRC’s Leadership and Mentoring Programme.

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THE QUEST FO Society’s use of energy underpins everything we do. We can’t eat, work, travel, drink, wash, surf the internet or do anything without consuming energy – and most of that energy currently comes from fossil fuels. EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow, Dr Greg Offer (pictured), from Imperial College London, outlines the energy options available to humanity and describes his research, which includes finding new power sources for the transportation systems of the future.

Greg writes: Transport is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, more so than any other sector, and there are no currently available alternatives capable of replacing them on the scale required. However, fuel is becoming more expensive every year, and even big oil companies are predicting difficult times ahead.

A report published by Shell in 2011 predicts a future described by two extremes, broadly interpreted as everyone working in their own interests versus everyone working together.

In the report, Signals & Signposts, Shell also PIONEER 09 2013 10 Winter Summer 2013

predicts a period over the next few decades where there is an enormous shortfall in global energy supply compared to energy demand if current trends of development are followed. In its own words, Shell describes this period as one either of extraordinary opportunity or extraordinary misery.

The research I do at Imperial College London is about how we use the energy, with a focus on transport, although not exclusively.

For surface transport, electrification is probably the most important alternative.

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OR POWER We can produce electricity from anything: wind, solar, tides and waves, nuclear, and fossil fuels. Because of this, electricity can be seen as a universal energy carrier. Even with current electricity generation, using natural gas, electric vehicles could reduce the energy required per mile by roughly 40 per cent.

Moving forward, with increasing amounts of renewable electricity, electric vehicles become zero emission. More importantly, there are no limits to the expansion of electricity production. As renewable technologies begin to be deployed at scale it will become possible to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, which will increasingly have to be imported.

However, chemical fuels will still be important. We can’t electrify everything.

In 2050 we will still be able to produce considerable amounts of fossil fuels, but alternatives such as biofuels, solar fuel and hydrogen could all become major players.

Biofuels are likely to be cheap to produce, and although second and third generation biofuels based on crop wastes or salt water agriculture minimise competition with food production, land and water availability will always impose a natural limit on production.

Solar fuels could be significant, converting carbon dioxide and water directly into fuels using solar energy.

We can also convert electricity into hydrogen or other chemical fuels via electrolysis, especially if the renewable electricity is ‘stranded’, for example if a grid connection is too expensive.

Fuel cells could also be important.

Currently powered by hydrogen, fuel cells are already viable in some niches, such as forklift trucks in distribution centres. They are also scheduled to be launched in the mass automobile market in 2015 by the likes of Toyota, Daimler and General Motors.

The challenges of hydrogen production could initially limit the penetration of fuel cells into the mass market, but in the future they could be more fuel flexible, running on compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and could PIONEER 09 2013 10 Winter Summer 2013

ultimately occupy significant niches where electrification is challenging – for example, heavy goods and long distance vehicles. As costs come down they could even challenge the dominance of the internal combustion engine with their higher efficiency.

What we can’t ignore is that the internal combustion engine will still be with us for a long time. Despite a hundred years of development we still haven’t reached the technical limits of the technology.

Downsizing and turbocharging could give us up to 40 per cent improvement in internal combustion engine efficiency. Furthermore, hybridisation – using more than one power source – could help extend the range of electric vehicles, and double efficiency.

Whether you think we will need a portfolio of technologies for different applications or you are prepared to pick a winner, it is clear that electrochemical devices – which are vital to power generation by electric cells – are going to be essential.

My research at Imperial is supported by an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship, which provides me with the time and flexibility to focus on establishing an independent research career; time which I am using to establish a group working on understanding electrochemical devices in automotive applications and fuel production.

In my group we spend roughly half our time on fuel cells and electrolysers, studying how to both make chemical fuels and use them more efficiently, and the other half of our time on batteries and super-capacitors, across a range of applications, from stopstart systems to full electric vehicles.

In both cases, degradation and failure are the common themes, with many similarities in approach. We are combining advanced computer modelling approaches with novel experimental techniques to tackle them.

My group already consists of six PhD students and two postdoctoral researchers, and every member is cosupervised with a different colleague from over five departments, demonstrating the interdisciplinarity and collaborative nature of my research.

The project aims to provide much-needed support to the UK’s automotive industry so that, ultimately, our motorways in 50 years’ time will be cleaner and greener.

As an electrochemist based in mechanical engineering I am working at the interface between the science and the engineering, trying to push the boundaries of the science but at the same time apply the fundamental understanding to challenges faced by industry – doing good science but also demonstrating impact by solving real problems in the real world.

This is exemplified by one of my projects, the FUTURE vehicle consortium, co-funded

by EPSRC through the Technology Strategy Board Low Carbon Vehicle Integrated Delivery Programme.

FUTURE is a consortium of six universities and a panel of industrial advisers to develop the tools and techniques that industry will need to design better electric and hybrid vehicles by the end of this decade (see page 34).

My work is also supported by EPSRC New Directions funding to develop new experimental techniques for investigating extremes of operation of electrochemical devices in automotive applications. This is work that can be dangerous and we are going to be pushing devices into regions few groups dare to venture.

By focusing on the underpinning science, but continually looking for opportunities to apply what we have learnt to real problems, I believe it is possible to publish papers, demonstrate impact by working with industry, and establish a sustainable research group.

Greg Offer’s EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship (CAF) provided up to five years’ funding to enable him to pursue new research directions and build collaborations internationally, within and across disciplines.

In 2011 EPSRC refreshed its approach to Fellowships, and the Career Acceleration Fellowship scheme was replaced within a revised Fellowship framework.

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welcome to the

CAR OF THE FUTURE

While it’s unlikely we’ll all be driving around in sports cars in 20 years’ time, one thing’s for sure – the next generation of automobile will be powered very differently compared to the vehicles we drive today.

A consortium of EPSRC-funded researchers from some of the UK’s leading universities, working with the likes of Lotus and Jaguar Land Rover, is developing the tools and techniques the automotive industry will inevitably need to develop a new generation of road vehicle.

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The Lotus Evora 414E hybrid (pictured), developed to showcase emerging technologies, is an elegant case in point.

The FUTURE vehicle consortium’s Dr Greg Offer, from Imperial College London, says: “The automotive industry is entering a period of immense change.

“The electrification of powertrains (engines, gears and shafts) has begun and will continue over the next 30-40 years.

“During this period, the industry will have to reinvent itself to work with new technologies – by integrating them into existing business models or developing new ones to survive.

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“This is a once-in-a-generation challenge but also an opportunity. Underlying trends in resource depletion, not least fossil fuels, and concerns over air pollution and global warming, are inevitable. The argument will be how slowly or quickly the transition will occur, not whether it will happen.”

In response, the FUTURE vehicle project is developing the tools and techniques the automotive industry needs in order to develop vehicles that significantly improve the prospects of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, fuel cell and electric vehicles before the end of the decade.

Not only must these vehicles be greener and more efficient, they must be faster and better than current designs, enabling them to compete with the incumbent technologies. The team are also working with industry to help solve more immediate research challenges, enabling them to not only validate and test their models, but also to demonstrate the usefulness of the tools and techniques they are developing.

The FUTURE (Fundamental Understanding of Technologies for Ultra Reduced Emission)

vehicle consortium comprises Imperial College London, the University of Oxford, Coventry University, Cranfield University, the University of Sheffield, Loughborough University and 10 industry advisers.

The project is co-funded by EPSRC through the Technology Strategy Board Low Carbon Vehicle Integrated Delivery Programme.

And the Lotus Evora 414E? You can expect to be driving something like it within 10 years.

LOTUS EVORA 414E The FUTURE vehicle consortium is already influencing automotive design.

The striking Lotus Evora 414E hybrid, part of the REEV collaborative R&D project funded by the TSB, the Office for Low Emission Vehicles and the Department for Business Innovation & Skills, is a case in point.

LOTUS EVORA 414E HYBRID Power: 408 horsepower Torque: 1,000 Nm (738 lb/ft) Top speed: 130 mph (209 km/h) Acceleration: 0-60 in under 5 seconds Electric range: 30 miles (48 km) Full range: 300 miles (483 km) CO2 emissions: 55 g/km PIONEER 2013 PIONEER 09 10 Winter Summer 2013

Showcasing new developments in plugin, range-extended electric propulsion, the 414E’s trump card is the engineers’ commitment to a no-compromise driving experience. The 414E uses a hybrid electric drivetrain. Electrical energy is provided to the battery by an extremely compact, lightweight, low-cost, 1.2 litre petrol engine and generator.

Specifically designed for hybrid vehicles, the engine’s high efficiency and low mass

will help reduce the size, and ultimately the cost, of expensive batteries.

Each drive wheel is connected to an electric motor which allows for independent rear wheel control. DC voltage from the battery is converted into voltage for the drive motors.

The lithium polymer energy storage system is optimised for energy density, efficiency and high power demand. The battery can be charged at traditional mains outlets. For journeys exceeding the vehicle’s 30-mile capacity, the engine supplies the motor with electrical power and tops up the battery.

Further innovations include regenerative braking control and a virtual gearshift, which enhances driver control while enabling more efficient operation through a novel energy regeneration system.

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Standing up for science Sarah Wiseman, an EPSRC-supported PhD student at University College London (UCL), describes her stand-up comedy routine – all based around her PhD research.

As a research student, one of the things I enjoy doing is sharing my work and talking to others about it. I get plenty of opportunities to do this at seminars and academic conferences, but my audiences at these events are usually of one mind – people who, like me, think that understanding the way humans interact with computers is fascinating and incredible, and who are happy to listen to my jokes about number entry research.

Enter Bright Club, the first rule of which is: ‘Tell all your friends about Bright Club’.

Bright Club is an evening of stand-up comedy with an academic twist: all of the performers spend their days in university research labs and offices; everyone is a student, researcher or lecturer.

The club started at UCL as a way to help academics get more involved in public engagement.

Engaging the public in our research is an ongoing project. We have amazing research that the public would be really excited to know about, but how do we tell them in an interesting way? Some have gone so far as to express their research through interpretive dance, but, for me, stand-up comedy best suits my extrovert nature. My meaner friends would say I’ve always sought attention.

It’s thanks to Bright Club that I’ve had some fantastic chances to talk about my research to some pretty diverse audiences – from sets at the Wilmington Arms pub in London to an assembled throng of music festival attendees.

When starting my academic career I never considered anything like this happening.

I imagined presenting my work in overly air-conditioned rooms filled with bored academics, not in a tent full of slightly sunburnt, mildly merry music lovers.

I’m pleased to say that non-academic audiences quickly warm to the subject matter, and understand the importance of the work – which, after all, is what public engagement is all about: whether it’s on stage, in the pub or on the bus.

One of the main goals of our number entry research, which is part of the EPSRCfunded CHI+MED project, is to find ways to reduce the errors associated with the programming of interactive medical devices.

When under pressure, for example, it’s easy for a nurse to key in the wrong setting for an infusion pump, which could have potentially fatal consequences. Ultimately, we hope to learn how to reduce the likelihood and consequences of human error – which I think is an important message, and should be shared with a wider audience.

Not only is performing at Bright Club a buzz, it’s helping me in other areas of my academic career. There’s nothing more scary than trying to make a room full of people laugh, so when last October I was presenting to academics in the US, in front of what had to be the world’s largest PowerPoint projector, I was less fazed than perhaps I should have been.

My presentations have become more interesting as a result of my stand-up comedy routine. I now know how to adapt a message to the audience and can make it fun and engaging at the same time.

By the time you read this I will have performed at another comedy gig, in May. Which means I’ll have cursed myself for agreeing to it, frantically tried to write a set, given up, tried again, made myself chuckle a bit, finished the set, got to the venue, cursed myself again, been brave, performed, and survived – while having a good time somewhere in all that, too.

Performing stand up comedy has allowed me to share my work with people who otherwise I’d never have had a chance to talk to. I’d recommend the experience to anyone who wants to improve their presentation skills, or get more involved in public engagement.

Photography: Mark Mallett

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Sit-down comedian: Sarah unwinds at the end of another one-woman perfomance.

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Lens logic When Professor John Rodenburg set out to demonstrate that you don’t actually need a lens to push the limits of microscopy, even his friends thought he was a little crazy. He wasn’t, and now the technology is being hailed as revolutionary, and potentially capable of creating the highest resolution images ever seen.

Words: Mike Hatcher Think of the components you would need to build a microscope. Somewhere near the top of your list, probably, will be a lens.

So if somebody told you that not only is the lens surplus to requirements, a lens-free microscope could dramatically improve image resolution, would you believe them?

As ideas go, it’s pretty counter-intuitive. And yet this idea – which goes by the none-too catchy name of ‘ptychography’ – has been around for more than 40 years.

Similar in principle to holography, ptychography uses algorithms based on clever mathematics and a light sensor instead of a lens. It then uses a computer to reconstruct the image from a series of patterns formed when light or electrons scatter through a sample. It now promises to revolutionise electron microscopy in particular.

Back in the early 1990s, when based at the University of Cambridge, John Rodenburg set about finding a mathematical solution to what was then known as ‘the phase problem’. He knew that if he could find it, then ptychography could, in theory, be applied to any form of microscopy – optical, X-ray, electron and more – and the notion of a ‘virtual lens’ might become a reality.

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For optical microscopy, which uses nearperfect lenses but has limited magnifying power, the benefits were not so obvious.

But for electron microscopes, which use ‘lenses’ based on magnets to magnify and focus an image, rather than glass optics, it was different. Far more complex and expensive than their optical equivalents, electron lenses have a long way to go before reaching their theoretical limit in terms of resolution – in fact they’re 20 times less powerful than they could be.

While the potential was revolutionary, the phase problem was notoriously complex.

Undaunted, Rodenburg found a solution, and even managed to demonstrate it experimentally. But that wasn’t enough.

“The trouble was that the way you had to collect the data was very restrictive and difficult,” he recalls. “The data sets were enormous, and the standards of computation meant that the biggest picture we ever got was 32 by 32 pixels, which is not exactly very impressive. When compared to images from a normal electron microscope, the images were so bad everyone thought I was bonkers.”

Fast-forward to 2013, and Rodenburg, now a professor in the Department of Electronic

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(Continued from previous page) and Electrical Engineering at the University of Sheffield, now looks to have proved everybody wrong – thanks in part to funding through EPSRC’s £4.3 million Ultimate Microscopy project that ended just over a year ago.

Armed with John Rodenburg’s intellectual property, Phase Focus, the University of Sheffield spin-out company he cofounded, has just signed a licensing deal to commercialise the technology with Gatan, a key global player in electron microscopes.

So just how did ptychography go from bonkers to commercially viable? For Rodenburg, a conference at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001 proved pivotal: “There, people were using a different mathematical method to solve the phase problem. I had known about this method, and it had come a long way, but I still thought there was a much better approach.”

The EPSRC grant application – initially unsuccessful – would follow, and the Ultimate Microscopy project eventually began in September 2007. It allowed him to demonstrate that the mathematical proof PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

of principle could translate to practical microscopy. Rodenburg had already patented the concept. “As soon as I saw the mathematical solution drop out I knew that there would be so many applications, in any type of microscopy,” he says. “I knew it just had to be big.”

And that’s where Ian Pykett, now chief executive at Phase Focus, comes in. A winner of the Rank Prize for optoelectronics in 1997, he had already built up a series of small companies in the fields of magnetic resonance imaging and energy technology. While Rodenburg was applying for the EPSRC grant, Pykett was advising on technology commercialisation at Sheffield, sifting through piles of patent applications and looking for any with commercial potential.

Pykett is a keen follower of Clayton Christensen, the influential Harvard Business School professor who coined the term ‘disruptive invention’. As far as Pykett was concerned, Rodenburg’s work fitted the bill.

“This looked to have the characteristics of a very dramatic innovation,” he recalls. “One

that could really change the way people do imaging and microscopy.”

With financial support from Sheffield’s specialist start-up fund, Fusion IP, Rodenburg and Pykett founded Phase Focus in 2006. Following a £3 million injection of venture capital in 2012, bringing the total investment raised to £5.7 million, the company now has 17 employees and is generating revenues from a commercial application that nobody saw coming – something that Pykett says is typical of disruptive technologies.

A crucial revenue stream has come from the ‘conventional optical microscopy market.

Even though optical lenses are near-perfect, Rodenburg knew from the start that more information could be extracted from the patterns of light detected; what he did not realise was just how sensitive and useful this ‘quantum phase’ information would turn out to be at optical wavelengths, and the myriad applications that now beckon.

The ‘phase imaging’ made possible by Rodenburg’s breakthrough can provide high-precision images of features in

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transparent samples in a transparent solution – akin to being able to observe in great detail a white cat in snow.

This level of detail is incredibly useful for manufacturers of soft contact lenses. “A lot of companies want to be able to measure the precise characteristics of competitors’ contact lenses, as well as their own,” says Pykett. “We can measure them, and it’s turned out to be a really good early revenue generator.

“We’ve also found a particular strength doing stain-free cell imaging; in particular looking at cell mitosis, a process of cell division.”

In conventional microscopy, samples are often ‘stained’ so they can be better viewed.

In medicine, this is done to see how infected samples react to treatment. However, it can also damage or even kill the specimen.

Pykett says: “As we are able to obtain high contrast images of what would otherwise be transparent features, we can very easily image cell division in cultures over 24 hours, without the need for any staining. That’s pretty revolutionary.”

While the contact lens and stain-free cell imaging applications exploit the technology

in the optical realm, electron microscope users also stand to benefit from stainfree imaging, as well as unprecedented resolution made possible by the virtual lens.

Sean Davis, senior lecturer and head of the electron microscopy unit at the University of Bristol’s School of Chemistry, is clearly impressed: “This is a disruptive and potentially revolutionary addition to electron microscopy,” he says.

Sean Davis’s colleague, Dr Annela Sneddon, from the University of Bristol’s Centre for Functional Nanomaterials, says: “Any technique that allows for the study of soft, low-contrast biological materials without the need for potentially damaging stains or sectioning, and at low power, will revolutionise the way that electron microscopy is applied in the life sciences.”

There are two kinds of electron microscope: the transmission electron microscope (TEM), and the scanning electron microscope (SEM). Of the two, TEM, the forerunner of electron microscopy, offers better resolution.

The SEM yields excellent images of surfaces but has a lower resolution than TEMs can provide. Phase Focus’s ‘virtual lens’ seems set to revolutionise both types.

Sean Davis says: “Generation of an image from a scanning electron microscope with resolution comparable to a conventional transmission electron microscope would be a huge step forward. Ultimately, it should be possible to gain the highest resolution TEM ever achieved.”

The licensing agreement with Gatan, signed in February 2013, should result in the US company offering the technology across the electron microscope market – in the relatively simple form of a software upgrade.

Ian Pykett says: “The great thing about the deal with Gatan is that they address the entire market, from electron microscope manufacturers to end users.”

The last word goes to John Rodenburg. He says: “This journey has taught me that if you try solving a problem that’s not easily solved but is nevertheless important, then you end up solving all sorts of other problems you wouldn’t have thought it could be relevant to.

“We’ve shown we can improve upon the resolution limit of an electron lens by a factor of five. No longer does TEM have to be bound by the paradigm of the lens, its Achilles heel since its invention in 1933.”

Mike Hatcher is a freelance journalist and editor of optics.org

Commercialising the research Phase Focus, the University of Sheffield spin-out company set up in 2006 to commercialise Professor John Rodenburg’s research, received crucial early stage investment from the University of Sheffield’s specialist start-up fund, Fusion IP. In phase: Professor John Rodenburg (left) and Dr Ian Pykett, co-founders of Phase Focus.

Phase Focus chief executive and cofounder, Dr Ian Pykett, says: “The Fusion IP mechanism was critical to our early funding,

and it turned out to be a fantastic way to get the technology off the ground.

“We’ve had direct interchange from the academic side to the commercial side and a completely interactive flow of both people and ideas. It’s been a tremendous collaborative relationship – I think it’s a model of the way business and academia should work together.”

Any technique that allows for the study of soft, low-contrast biological materials without the need for potentially damaging stains or sectioning, and at low power, will revolutionise the way that electron microscopy is applied in the life sciences

Dr Annela Seddon, Centre for Functional Nanomaterials, University of Bristol PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

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Reading the unreadable Pioneering X-ray technology is making it possible to read fragile rolled-up historical documents – without having to open them.

Image: James Harrison

Old parchment is often extremely dry and liable to crack and crumble if any attempt is made to physically unroll or unfold it.

The new technology, however, eliminates the need to do so by enabling parchment to be unrolled or unfolded ‘virtually’ and the contents displayed on a computer screen.

Developed at Cardiff University and Queen Mary, University of London with funding from EPSRC, the breakthrough means historians will be able to access previously unusable written sources and gain new insight into the past.

No other technique developed anywhere in the world has the capability to make text concealed in rolled or folded historical parchments genuinely legible. The system has now been tested successfully on a 19th century scroll provided by the Norfolk Record Office’.

In a completely innovative approach to the problem, the technique works by scanning parchment with X-rays in order to detect the presence of iron contained in ‘iron gall ink’ – the most commonly used ink in Europe between the 12th and 19th centuries.

Using a method called microtomography, a 3-dimensional ‘map’ showing the ink’s exact location is built up by creating images made PIONEER 10 Summer 2013

from a series of X-ray ‘slices’ taken through the parchment.

Advanced software specially developed by the Cardiff team combines the data obtained with information about the way the parchment is rolled or folded up and calculates exactly where the ink sits on the parchment. An image of the document as it would appear unrolled or unfolded can then be produced.

The key difference between the new method and other previous techniques developed to read un-openable historical documents is the unprecedentedly high contrast resolution it provides to distinguish between ink and parchment. This means the ink shows up very well against the parchment and is genuinely readable.

The scanning takes place at the Institute of Dentistry at Queen Mary, University of London led by Dr Graham Davis: “Because no commercial or research X-ray tomography scanners were capable of providing the quality of image we needed, we’ve developed our own advanced scanner which is also being adapted for a diverse range of other scientific uses, including those within our own Institute of Dentistry where enhanced, high contrast

images are enabling the detection and analysis of features in teeth that we haven’t been able to see before.”

Professor Tim Wess of Cardiff University says: “This is a milestone in historical information recovery. The conservation community is rightly very protective of old documents and isn’t prepared to risk damaging them by opening them. Our breakthrough means they won’t have to.

“Across the world, literally thousands of previously unusable documents up to around a thousand years old could now become available for historical research – making it really possible to read the unreadable.”

The technique works by scanning parchment with X-rays.

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The UK depends on science and engineering for its longterm growth and prosperity. You can find out how EPSRCsponsored researchers are making a difference – and contributing to the nation’s growth and prosperity – by downloading a new app, Growth Stories.

With a new story added each week, building up to a treasury of 50 stories, we think you’ll be impressed by the range and breadth of the research we have invested in – from low-cost solar power for the developing world to ground-breaking advances in healthcare technologies, and, fittingly, technology crucial to the success of the internet.

The free Growth Stories app is available for download on iPhones and iPads and can be viewed at: www.epsrc.ac.uk/growth

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For back issues or to subscribe to PIONEER for free, email: pioneer@epsrc.ac.uk

www.epsrc.ac.uk