Sheffield Univ. It joins the new sustainable production hubs

Four new research centers aimed at meeting the challenge of commercializing early-stage research in key manufacturing areas such as aerospace, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors have been launched with academics from the University of Sheffield.

The hubs – four of five hubs in the recently announced UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research and Innovation Council (EPSRC) funding program – also aim to make manufacturing processes more sustainable by reducing waste, emissions and pollution, as well as by reducing production costs.

The first hub – CSManuHubSust – aims to capitalize on the huge opportunity in compound semiconductor manufacturing as identified in the UK’s National Semiconductor Strategy.

Researchers will develop energy-efficient opto-electronics for use in key emerging technologies such as quantum. They will extend the environmental benefits of compound semiconductors by creating new devices such as mid-infrared detector arrays, mercury-free “night vision” and devices that communicate and illuminate based on integrated transistors and LEDs. The Hub is run by Cardiff University in collaboration with Professor Lenny Koh from the University of Sheffield Management School.

The second – the Advanced Metrology for Sustainable Manufacturing hub – will develop innovative new technologies, such as ultra-fast and compact sensors using nanophotonic metamaterials and quantum sensors, to improve resource efficiency and productivity across the range of sectors that rely on precision manufacturing. .

The advances in metrology – the science of measurement – that this hub aims to make could eventually reduce industries’ reliance on cheap international labor and significantly reduce the carbon cost of transport for many types of manufactured goods. The hub is run by the University of Huddersfield in collaboration with Professor Ben Morgan from the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC).

The third – the MediForge hub – aims to transform drug development and production by launching an Industry 5.0 approach focused on harnessing advanced technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence for sustainable, resilient and human-centric drug production.

This includes:

The MediForge Hub is run by the University of Strathclyde in collaboration with Professor Rachel Smith and Professor Jim Litster from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

The fourth hub – the Manufacturing Research Hub in Robotics, Automation and Smart Machine Enabled Sustainable Circular Manufacturing and Materials (RESCu-M2) – is led by the University of Birmingham in collaboration with Professor Ashutosh Tiwari, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Innovation at the University of Birmingham. Sheffield and Airbus/RAEng Chair in Digital Manufacturing. This hub aims to use advances in AI, robotics and intelligent automation to create a new sustainable circular manufacturing ecosystem in various sectors such as large aerospace structures, electric drives, energy and medical devices.

By improving the way we reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture and recycle in production, the hub will help ensure we increase the reuse of critical components by at least 75% and recover at least 50% more components. For example, increasing the reuse of rare earth metals in magnets by just 30% could secure the UK’s supply of these critical materials whose supply is usually environmentally destructive and from politically unstable regions.

Professor Sue Hartley, Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Sheffield, said: “I’m really excited to see Sheffield academics working together on so many of these new sustainable manufacturing hubs. Manufacturing research and innovation is an area of ​​strength for us, here at the University of Sheffield, our academics have a fantastic track record of delivering projects that have real impact locally, nationally and internationally, and these centers continue that tradition. I would like to congratulate everyone involved in these awards every success in your research to help production be more efficient, productive and sustainable.”