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[April 2006]
Large Grant Secured at Loughborough for Nanoscale Work
The Institute of Polymer Technology & Materials Engineering (IPTME) at the University of Loughborough, Leics, England has recently been awarded a grant, together with the Wolfson School and Physics, for a project entitled ‘Manufacture and Characterisation at the Nanoscale’ of £1.2 million, which will provide some exciting new research equipment.
This includes a state of the art ‘two beam’ electron and ion beam microscope which will facilitate fine scale analysis and the manufacture of extremely small devices. Additional equipment being purchased includes thin film deposition, surface profilometry and very low temperature devices for superconductivity research.
This follows previous news released by Loughborough that two new patent applications had been submitted by Professor Jon Binner’s research group. The first is associated with a new process for producing high solids content but low viscosity aqueous suspensions from zirconia nanopowders. It is well known that the finer the particle size, the higher the viscosity of a suspension for a given solids content so when dealing with nanoparticles measuring just 20 nm in size, the viscosity of the suspension becomes excessively high for practical manufacturing at just 30wt% to 40wt%. The new research has resulted in suspensions with viscosities as low as 0.1 Pa s at solids contents as high as 75wt%.
The second patent is based on a new technique for producing holloware items from a wide range of different ceramic systems. Essentially, it combines the process of rotary moulding, taken from the polymer industry, with new forming routes for ceramics such as gel casting or in-situ coagulation moulding. The idea is to put a ceramic suspension into a mould and then rotate it gently whilst the suspension sets, yielding the ceramic body. The original work was done with clay-based suspensions in a DTI Sustainable Technologies Initiative-funded project with half a dozen traditional ceramics manufacturers from the tableware, giftware and sanitaryware industries, but more recent research has shown the broad applicability of the process.
ENDS