The first 10 winners will receive a share of £5m from the Fast Start Projects competition. The winners have created innovative research projects involving various stages of the supply chain, including: feedstock inputs, production and material product development. Each project involves companies from at least two of the foundation industries, illustrating the cross-industry problem solving taking place in the UK today.
The projects include:
- A project with the University of Cambridge involving low cost catalytic conversion of methane to high purity hydrogen for use in the Foundation Industries
- EnviroAsh will identify how ashes and other byproducts can be used as raw materials for new glass and ceramic products, minimizing their carbon and energy costs – project led by Glass Technology Services, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
- South Wales With Both Eyes Open – a project that will bring together a foundation industry cluster to collaborate on saving energy, recycling and extracting precious metal, led by Environmental Resources Management
- IRIFIO will utilise machine learning to enhance artificial intelligence, robotics and vision systems when applied to foundation industry production processes. It builds on previous work inspecting defects in metals production through digitised inspection sensor technology to enhance industrial productivity and significantly reduce energy in both glass and ceramic manufacturing.
The foundation industry sector combined produce 75% of all the materials in our economy and account for around 10% of the UK total CO2 emissions. The Challenge will bring together companies and universities from across these industries to work on common resource and energy efficiency opportunities, with £66m of the funding provided by government and £83m of private sector funding.
The sector has not been immune to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and with that in mind UKRI is launching a specific competition seeking proposals to support an innovation-led exit from the Covid-19 crisis and to protect the UK’s foundation industries innovation capability. Aligned with the objective of the ISCF TFI Challenge, projects will have to demonstrate how they address resource/energy efficiency of foundation industries and support resilience and sustainability of the sector and its supply chains.
Bruce Adderley – UKRI’s Interim Challenge Director, Transforming Foundation industries, said: “It is clear that as we move towards net zero goals, the foundation industries will play a key role in delivering on the UK’s strategy as they transform themselves in an environmentally sustainable manner. The TFI challenge supports this aim and is an excellent example of the cross-industry innovation taking place in the UK. These fast start competition winners and the winners of future competitions will provide innovative ways to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the country’s foundation industries.
“As the economy bounces back from the coronavirus pandemic, foundation industries too will play their role. Recognising this, we have launched a linked and targeted funding competition to build resilience and sustainability in both the sector and the supply chains they support across the UK’s regions.”
The challenge is also investing £4.7m in a cross-sector and multi-disciplinary Research and Innovation Hub that will work to accelerate the development and adoption of new technologies and business models within the Foundation Industries. Applicants will develop multidisciplinary Research and Innovation programmes that focus on linking innovators with industry to address challenges across the Foundation Industries. Applications for this challenge are open now.
For more information about the challenge, applying for funding and upcoming events, please follow the links below:
See more about the £350m to fuel green recovery on the Gov.uk website.
The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) brings together the UK’s world-leading research base with our best businesses to transform how we live, work and move around. It will put the UK in the best position to take advantage of future market opportunities.
Transforming Foundation Industries – The Transforming Foundation Industries programme through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund will help energy-intensive businesses to share expertise and come up with radical new innovations to help reduce their carbon footprint.
The programme will inject significant new public and industry innovation funding into the foundation industries, helping us deliver against our vision of a cutting edge, innovative and sustainable industrial sector. £66m will be provided by the government and £83 million will come from industry.
The Fast Start project winners (subject to grant offer and conditions being met) are:
Project Title | Project Partners | Location | Description |
Hybrid sintering for decarbonisation and productivity in manufacturing | Lucideon Limited Vesuvius UK Ltd Glass Technology Services Ltd University of Sheffield Knowles (UK) Limited |
West Midlands London East of England Yorkshire and The Humber Yorkshire and The Humber | This project will target benefits in resource and energy efficiency assessing the possibility of combining two novel and highly energy efficient sintering technologies to exploit the strengths of both systems, with the objective of developing a processing technology for use by the glass and ceramics sectors. |
Development new waste-derived raw materials for the Foundation Industries (EnviroAsh) | Glass Technology Services Ltd Glassworks Services Ltd Wienerberger Ltd Glass Futures Ltd Encirc Ltd Saica Paper UK Ltd Power Minerals Ltd Castle Cement Ltd University of Sheffield Sheffield Hallam University Drax Group PLC | Yorkshire and The Humber | The project will identify opportunities to take waste ashes, slags, mineral by-products and filter dusts from across the FIs and convert them into new raw materials for a range of products produced within the glass, ceramic and cement Foundation Industry sectors. The project will also look at improving product performance. |
Re-usable net-zero carbon structures | Mace Ltd Octagon i/o ltd DB Group (Holdings) Ltd AKT II Ltd Oranmore Precast Ltd William Hare Ltd University College London | London London East of England London London East of England | The project proposes a prefabricated, offsite, reusable, net-zero carbon structure made from recycled steel and cement-free concrete. Targeting commercial offices and infrastructure applications, the components will be manufactured offsite and delivered to the project site as sub-assemblies and installed as a single operation. |
"SAFERII": Non-combustible Cladding Systems | Alsitek Ltd Tata Steel UK Ltd | South East London | This project seeks to deliver a completely inorganic, insulative product with an insulation performance akin to PIR foam, with the significant benefits inorganic materials bring for safety in fire both from non-combustibility and a complete absence of toxic smoke emissions. |
South Wales With Both Eyes Open: A Fast Start Project | Environmental Resources Management Ltd Valero Energy Ltd Sector Development Wales Partnership Ltd Rockwool Ltd Tarmac Trading Ltd Costain Ltd Confederation of Paper Industries Ltd Sexton Materials Research Ltd CR Plus Ltd Swansea University Celsa Manufacturing (UK) Ltd Capital Law Ltd Vale Europe Ltd | London London Wales Wales West Midlands South East South West Wales Wales | The proposed is a research and development project that aims to bring multiple stakeholders within the Foundation Industry South Wales Region together to analyse material and energy flows and identify potential opportunities for collaboration. Funding will support an industrial circular economy vision that will open new opportunities for improved energy and resource efficiency. |
Power Generation and Heat Recovery from Industrial Waste Heat with Advanced CO2 Thermodynamic Power Cycles (PowerCO2) | Celsa Manufacturing (UK) Ltd Venturi Jet Pumps Ltd University of South Wales Glass Technology Services Ltd Glass Futures Ltd | Wales Yorkshire and The Humber West Midlands Wales Yorkshire and The Humber | The project will create an innovative CO2 transcritical power cycle (iT-CO2) for energy conversion systems with industrial waste heat - targeting heat-intensive industries such as steel and glass. Instead of using an inapplicable CO2 liquid pump, a combined CO2 transcritical compressor and vapour-liquid ejector will be developed and installed in the system to create thermal-to-electrical efficiency aim of 30% (i.e. double state-of-the-art). |
Upgrading the value of BOS slag by addition of difficult to recycle glass or slags | Materials Processing Institute Glass Futures Ltd PWS Road Building Services Tarmac Trading Ltd British Steel Ltd | North East Yorkshire and The Humber London West Midlands Yorkshire and The Humber | Steelmaking slag from the integrated route, made from blast furnace hot metal, is demetalled, crushed and screened, and used to create tarmac for the top surface of roads
This project objective is to use slag arising within the steel industry, and streams of waste glass and refractory from the glass industry, all of which have no ready recycling route, to modify the slag from the steelmaking process. This will then produce an aggregate replacement of higher value. |
Intelligent Robotic Inspection for Foundation Industry Optimisation - IRIFIO | I3D Robotics Ltd Lucideon Ltd Glass Technology Services Ltd | South East West Midlands Yorkshire and The Humber | This collaborative, industrial R&D project will utilise machine learning to enhance artificial intelligence, robotics and vision systems when applied to foundation industry production processes. It builds on previous work inspecting defects in metals production through digitised inspection sensor technology to enhance industrial productivity and significantly reduce energy in both glass and ceramic manufacturing. |
Low cost catalytic conversion of methane to high purity hydrogen for use in the Foundation Industries | Q-Flo Ltd Glass Futures Ltd Accelyo Ltd University of Cambridge | East Midlands East of England Scotland | This project brings together different foundation industries, bulk chemical and glass production, to realize shared opportunities for use of hydrogen by-product from functional carbon production as a supply to float glass manufacturing. |
Paper, Ash and Resin: Valorisation of Foundation Industry Waste Streams | Cambond Ltd Bangor University Sappi Biotech UK Ltd | East of England Wales Yorkshire and The Humber | Industry has worked hard to deal with the waste streams or manufacturing paper, ceramics and metals, but a substantial portion of this material still goes to landfill. Better use of these wastes could replace the use of scarce or expensive virgin resources and reduce our carbon footprint. |