£2 Million Boost To University of Sussex’s Nanotech Projects

A team of nanomaterial physicists at the University of Sussex are set to receive a £2 million boost to their research from the nanotechnology company Advanced Material Development (AMD).

The University of Sussex’s Projects That Will Benefit

This will fund five new research positions for the next three years. The research group is led by Professor Alan Dalton, he is focused on using nanomaterial inks in environmentally sustainable designs.

The world discards eleven billion plastic and metallic clothing tags to landfills or incinerators each year, with their use rising still. This Sussex team of physicists is searching for an eco-friendly solution to this problem.

AMD agreed with Marks and Spencer to replace their radio frequency identification (RFID) clothing tags with a metal-free graphene conductive ink invented by the Sussex team. Instead of the current plastic and metal-based tags, the new invention sees the carbon-based RFID antenna printed onto recyclable paper, and used on the products, the items can be scanned and tracked from creation to sale.

Professor Alan Dalton leads the Materials Physics group within the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Sussex. Professor Dalton said “We’re on the cusp of taking a number of our inventions out of the lab and to market, and this significant new boost from Advanced Materials Development means we can recruit the team we need to make the next step. The company has exciting collaborations with Marks and Spencer, Honeywell, and many other global companies lined up. The potential applications for nanomaterial inks are boundless.”

The Sussex team is working on this as well as other projects like laser-proof eyewear for emergency service workers. According to the team, there is a rising number of emergency service workers around the world facing the risk of deliberate attacks using laser devices to cause blindness.

Prof Dalton’s team, collaborating with the University of Surrey, has developed a nanomaterial film coating for eyewear that can dissipate laser beams. This will prevent the laser from reaching the wearer’s eyes and reduce the risk of flash blindness and retina damage, this benefits the likes of police officers, firefighters, and pilots as examples.

Similar films of this material are being used for other applications like gas sensing and measuring doses of radiation. These projects are funded by the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders program which was recently awarded to Dr. Izabela Jurewicz, AMD’s Chief Science Officer.

Another application is reducing electronic interference in race cars, the team is developing materials to shield sensitive sensor components from electromagnetic interference. This is a considerable challenge especially for electric vehicles, they have adapted the formulation of their ink to be stretchable so it is compatible with rubber and other substrates while working with a major global automotive component supplier.

Another use of this material is adding to ceramics to boost safety, AMD has entered into an agreement with Honeywell to use graphene-based materials to improve armour. This will potentially add to the toughness of the armour, it will also allow the owners to test the structural health of the material and only replace it when necessary.

Dr. Sue Baxter, Director of Innovation and Business Partnerships at the University of Sussex said, “The University’s burgeoning partnership with AMD has been critical to driving our ground-breaking research to market in a fast, agile, and cost-effective way. The partnership directly supports new discovery in our labs and has shared it with commercial clients at phenomenal speed compared to the more conventional routes to market available for University-based research. If all universities had partnerships like this, the economic and social benefits of their research base would be accelerated exponentially.”

John Lee, Chief Executive Officer of AMD, said, “We have been working with the University of Sussex since mid-2018 under a Research Framework Agreement which governs how an SME can work with such a large academic organisation.

The partnership has enjoyed huge successes as we have moved forward, both from engagement with such a fantastic team of researchers within Professor Dalton’s team but also with the continuing positive support received from the Sussex Innovations and Business team. Our commitment to the ongoing work at the University is a strong belief supported by our shareholders in our ability to create true ground-breaking advances in the commercial applications for materials science.”

To learn more about the University of Sussex and its ongoing research, check out the link here.