Yorkshire at forefront of greener manufacturing
mercredi, 13 janvier 2010
Yorkshire is set to spearhead the move into green manufacturing after securing a £2.5m grant into developing cleaner manufacturing processes.
The grant from the European Research Development Fund through regional development agency Yorkshire Forward will enable chemists from Huddersfield University to help major companies troubleshoot their manufacturing processes.
The team - Innovative Physical Organic Solutions (IPOS) – has recently worked with a leading producer of health care products to find a way of identifying impurities from sourced products and ways of removing them to ensure perfectly pure products.
IPOS is also pioneering methods of improving the efficiency of fuel cells – batteries that generate electricity from a chemical reaction – that are also friendly to the environment.
The team is also developing a catalyst to ensure than firms in the pharmaceutical and chemicals sector can reduce waste when manufacturing.
Team leader Prof Mike Page said: “Every product in the modern world is touched by the chemical industry in some way and making things obviously requires energy.
“One of the things that we in IPOS are particularly good at is finding ways of making manufacturing processes more efficient. So if the company is already making a product we can help find a more energy efficient way of making it.”
It is expected that 10 scientists and technicians will join the IPOS team as a result of the funding.
Yorkshire has one of Europe’s largest concentrations of universities. With a combined turnover of more than £1.4bn the sector generates £2.8bn of output in the regional economy.
The research and development (R&D) investment by higher-education institutions in Yorkshire is 12% above the EU average. The region’s universities attract academic research investment worth £347m accounting for 42% of R&D investment in Yorkshire compared to a national average of 20%.