Sustainable Manufacturing Group

Research projects

The research areas that are currently covered by the Sustainable Manufacturing Group include:

Fundamentals of energy efficiency

A fundamental analysis of the limits to global energy efficiency, contrasting current energy demand with theoretical minimum requirements, in order to identify priorities for technical action.

Polymer recycling

Investigating novel, localised processes to transform polymer waste which is currently considered to be un-recyclable, into valuable, sustainable products.

Low-energy aluminium recycling processes

Forming new products from scrap aluminium by cold-bonding, using only a small fraction of the energy of conventional recycling.

Buildings from waste paper

Developing structural panels based on waste paper for low-cost housing.

Wind turbines

Use of bamboo for wind turbine manufacture in China. Improving the carbon footprint and cost effectiveness of wind turbines. Design of new generation of flexible wind turbines.

Sustainability database

Forming a knowledge share database of useful tools, frameworks and resources in sustainable business and manufacturing practices.

Natural materials

Developing materials selection and processing routes to create high tech materials from sustainable resources such as bamboo, flax and stinging nettles. Quantitative assessment of the ‘green’ credentials of such materials.

Industrial symbiosis

Member of the academic community which supports the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP), brokering partnerships between partners which provide waste and those who can use it as their input raw material.

Landfill mining

Technical, economic and social considerations of whether the contents of landfill sites can be excavated and materials reclaimed from them.

Sustainability and corporate social responsibility

Investigation of attitudes of multinational companies to environmental and social aspects of sustainability, centred on Brazil.

Product information management

Using automated identification technologies to connect tagged items to a computerised network to support improved decision making about disposal or resuse of products at the end of their life cycle.

Asset management

Looking at ways to reduce the impact of physical assets on the environment throughout their life cycle, including using automated identification technologies and sensor networks to improve the way assets are tracked and managed, and developing tools to quantify the ecological impact of assets.