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This case study describes the impact of interdisciplinary research at MMU that has focused on the development and characterisation of hygienic and antimicrobial surfaces across a range of applications, particularly with regard to food hygiene, which in turn impacts on food quality, reduced waste and consumer health across the international food industry. This 20-year collaboration has enabled identification and specification of properties of putative hygienic/antimicrobial surfaces, whilst testing them in vitro and in situ. This research has had international impacts in areas including health (cross-contamination) hygienic design (food processing), and development of standards for testing novel materials.
Cranfield's research into ultra-precision machining and production science has led to new production machines, and to commercial availability of advanced optical surfaces, at a level of accuracy previously impossible. Cranfield's industrial clients have won contracts for advanced surface production worth >£5 million in under five years. Cranfield made:
The research led to the development of a suite of tests to ensure appropriate assessment of biomechanical, mechanical and physical properties of equestrian arena surfaces. Test arenas were assessed in preparation for the London 2012 Olympic Games, generating data which contributed to changes in the design, construction and management of the Olympic equestrian arenas at Greenwich Park. Subsequently, functional properties suggested as most relevant to the performance, safety and welfare of horses in disciplines such as dressage and show jumping have been described in a White Paper, now endorsed and approved for publication by the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI).
NOTE: The FEI, established in 1921, is the international governing body responsible for all international equestrian events in disciplines such as dressage, show jumping and eventing. The FEI sets out the regulations for international equestrian competitions, including the Olympics and Paralympics.
A team of Portsmouth researchers has developed a transparent polymer coating that prevents colonising bacteria from adhering to the surfaces of teeth. In addition to protecting from decay, the polymer coating has the added benefits of reducing dental erosion, alleviating root hypersensitivity, and inhibiting the staining of teeth. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has adopted this technology and the polymer has been successfully developed into a component of "next-generation" oral healthcare products.
The UltraMill machine was developed at Brunel University in 2008, in collaboration with Ultra Precision Motion (UPM) Ltd, to help support UK and European manufacturing SMEs in high value manufacturing sectors, particularly in ultra-precision and micro manufacturing. The machine has a novel design and the sub-systems and machine elements have a number of technological innovations. Two international patents have been granted to protect the IP within the machine. A surface roughness of 4-6 nm was micro-milled on non-ferrous metal components by the UltraMill in 2008, which at the time was the finest engineering surface achieved by ultra-precision micro-milling in the world.
A licence agreement was signed with ITP Group (UK) in 2012 for the commercial production of the UltraMill. This was ITP's first entry into the high-precision milling market. ITP realigned their production systems to begin manufacturing the UltraMill in late 2012 and have manufactured 3 machines to date.
Contour Fine Tooling, which leads the worldwide market in the field of diamond cutting tools, was inspired by the UltraMill, and developed the first diamond micro-milling tool in the world. The UltraMill was used to test the tool's capabilities and feasibility; the new tool has since been successfully sold. It is now being used to manufacture a number of high-value products. In particular it is used by Apple to produce the bevelled edges of the iPhone 5S. Apple currently manufactures 150,000 iPhone 5S units per day.
Ehiasarian and Hovsepian of the Materials and Engineering Research Institute (MERI) have achieved significant economic impact through industrial uptake of their innovations in High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HIPIMS). Exploiting these innovations, HIPIMS treatments have been used by manufacturers to enhance the surface properties of millions of pounds worth of products. Applications include industrial blades, components within jet turbines, replacement hip joints, metallised semiconductor wafers and satellite cryo-coolers. Patents based on Ehiasarian and Hovsepian's research have achieved commercial success. In the REF impact period, HIPIMS machines equipped to deliver MERI''s HIPIMS surface pre-treatment have achieved sales of over £5m, and income generated through SHU's HIPIMS-related licences has totalled £403,270. In 2010 Ehiasarian's group established the Joint Sheffield Hallam University-Fraunhofer IST HIPIMS Research Centre, the first such Centre in the UK. This has broadened the industrial uptake of MERI's HIPIMS technologies and stimulated a network of sub-system providers.
A unique UK national capability for large optics manufacture and associated technologies has been exploited. This case study describes the benefits realised from research into high precision surface-removal processes plus metrology, applied to large area functional surfaces producing precisions down to nanometres. Research into metrology for optical manufacturing, into increasing the dynamic range of a CNC polishing machine and into the issues associated with scaling up from prototype to commercial mass production of large off-axis aspheric mirror-segments for future extremely large telescopes has made a significant contribution to the progress of the ESO European Extremely Large Telescope project and has brought commercial benefits to Zeeko Ltd.
Super-repellent surfaces created by plasmachemical techniques invented at Durham University have been exploited by P2i as the Ion-mask™ and Adiron™ brands and used to protect the surfaces of millions of products worldwide including: 3 million pairs of footwear (Timberland, Hi- Tec); 8 million mobile phones (Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel); 60% of the world's hearing aids (HLT, GN Resound); 55,000 feet of filter media (Porvair); and 100 million pipette tips (Eppendorf). This has earned P2i industry awards including the 2011 and 2012 International Business Award for "Most Innovative Company in Europe" and the "Global Business Excellence Award" 2012. The combined turnover of P2i since 2008 was ca. £20M, it received external investment of £31.75M and has created 115 new jobs. A DU IP-holding spin-out company, Surface Innovations, was purchased by P2i in 2010, and further applications of DU plasmachemical functionalization were commercialized by Dow Corning Plasma Solutions Ltd and exploited in-period.
Graham Buckton's work at the UCL School of Pharmacy has involved the development of new techniques, which are now industry standards, for assessing the amorphous content of materials in inhalation products. This work has had a significant influence on both manufacturing quality control and regulatory requirement, including informing FDA policy, to the effect that this type of assessment is now a requirement for licensing of powder inhalation medicines in the US and Europe. Benefits to drug companies include cost savings and more reliable production. Furthermore, the associated School of Pharmacy spin-out company, Pharmaterials, offers these assessments as a core part of its commercial activity, with a large client base of industrial partners who require such assessments for their inhalation and other products. The overall result of this work has been changes and improvements in the design, control and manufacture of inhalation products.
Novel vapour sorption experimental methods for the characterisation of complex particulate materials have been developed in the Department of Chemical Engineering. This research and expertise resulted in the creation of Surface Measurement Systems Limited (SMS), whose Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS) and Inverse Gas Chromatography (IGC) instruments are now found in >500 laboratories around the world. They are recognised standard research and development tools in the global pharmaceutical industry (DIN 66138). SMS has contributed >270 man-years of employment and generated £27M of turnover, whilst SMS instruments have generated over £300M of economic value, over the REF period.