Memorandum by the Technology Strategy
Board
We are pleased to respond to the Committee's
call for evidence for the inquiry into Waste Reduction.
The role of the Technology Strategy Board (an
executive NDPB) is to:
—
promote and support research into, and development
and exploitation of, science and technology for business benefit
for economic growth and quality of life;
—
deliver a programme of financial support to encourage
business investment in, and use of, technology across all sectors
in UK;
—
provide leadership to government departments and
agencies and work with RDAs, DAs and the Research Councils on
technological developments and innovation of importance to UK
business; and
—
advise Government on areas where barriers exist to
the exploitation of new technologies—and put forward recommendations
for removing them.
The Technology Strategy Board supports research
across the whole of the economy. It focuses on a number of Key
Technology Areas which provide the framework for deciding where
the Technology Strategy Board should invest funding and support
activities. Focused on areas where the UK has capacity to develop
and exploit the technology, and where there is global market potential,
they consist of horizontal technologies which underpin many areas
of the global economy and application areas which represent main
market opportunities. The areas are:
Horizontal Technologies:
—
Advanced Manufacturing.
—
Electrical, Electronics and Photonics.
Application Areas:
The interventions used by the Technology Strategy
Board include support for Collaborative Research & Development
projects, Knowledge Transfer Networks and Innovation Platforms
which are focused on major societal challenges and help to link
research to public procurement opportunity.
In the specific area of resource efficiency
and waste, the Technology Strategy Board is currently supporting
collaborative R&D projects with funding of £36 million
delivered through six calls held since November 2004:
—
Energy Efficiency Technologies (including Building
Design and Controls and Manufacturing Processes) (April 2006);
and
In addition to these calls, the Technology Strategy
Board is supporting many other projects (650 collaborative R&D
projects currently with funding of over £500 million) many
of which also have some form of positive environmental impact.
The advanced materials research also supports research on recycling.
With the exception of waste management &
minimisation and contaminated land remediation technologies, the
resource efficiency and waste reduction calls have focused on
promoting innovations in the upper levels of the waste hierarchy.
Two case studies can be found at Annex A.
BETTER DESIGN
AND THE
USE OF
MATERIALS
A report by the European Environment Agency
concluded that gains in technical efficiency are being offset
by increases in consumption.[21]
This is not to say that better design cannot offset the increase
in consumption but the trajectory is not yet right and technical
and non-technical interventions will be necessary to achieve this.
Benefits in efficiency may be offset, or even negated in what
has been termed the "rebound effect". Improved efficiency
levels reduce the cost of goods or services, which are then consumed
more intensively. Alternatively cost savings may be redeployed
elsewhere in increased discretionary spending (for example a new
flat screen television, or a holiday overseas). The extent of
the Rebound Effect is controversial, but certainly the relationship
between improved efficiency (through product design) and decrease
in consumption is not linear.
The UK has good academic capability in the area
of life-cycle assessment (LCA) and large multinational companies
often also have expertise, although this may not be UK-based.
Mid-sized and small companies generally do not have sufficient
capability in LCA, which is perceived as being expensive and time-consuming.
There is scope for best practice sharing and development of cheaper,
quicker LCA-based tools that can be used early in the innovation
process.
A database which allows designers to judge one
material against another would be a useful introduction. We are
aware that Materials UK has been exploring this. The problem is
that data exist at a number of levels and that needed to make
life-cycle relevant decisions is not validated. That leads through
to the fact that, without valid comparisons, it is impossible
to have a regulatory or standards framework that works.
BUSINESS FRAMEWORK
The Technology Strategy Board has supported
initiatives to encourage business to design out waste as early
in the process as possible, rather than introduce end of pipe
solutions. Two initiatives in particular, "Meeting the challenge
of the Zero Emission Enterprise" and support for collaborative
R&D projects in the area of Design and Manufacture of Sustainable
Products have looked at designing better processes and also designing
better and more sustainable products.
"Meeting the challenge of the Zero Emission
Enterprise" competition first held in April 2005 and again
in November 2006, aim to encourage business and academic communities
to focus more on the top of the waste hierarchy. The Zero Emission
Enterprise was proposed as a "challenge" to encourage
projects which offered integrated solutions to tackling the negative
impacts produced by an enterprise. This could be achieved through
encouraging better process design, the use of new or improved
materials, and process optimisation, which includes better in-line
recovery, separation and reuse of materials.
The projects supported are expected to deliver
innovative solutions to the challenge of eliminating the amount
of industrial and commercial waste (covering solid, liquid and
gaseous waste streams) being generated as well as creating processes
that are more resource efficient. Additional benefits from actions
in this area would also likely include water savings, energy efficiency
gains and reduced effluent and gaseous emissions.
Projects being supported include the replacement
of old, energy intensive and wasteful process with a low energy,
low waste, solvent free and cost-effective manufacturing process
and a project looking to deliver solutions to the identified problems,
spanning the full life cycle of a decorative paint, which address
all the identified environmental impacts.
The Design and Manufacture of Sustainable Products
call held in November 2005 offered a challenge to organisations
to collaborate in the research and development of innovative,
sustainable products. Falling product prices due to globalisation
of production, high product churn rates due to fashion, shorter
product development timescales and high rates of technological
change are all having an impact. Technological solutions to overcome
the challenges could include: materials substitution, lightweighting,
de-materialisation and decarbonisation; design for efficiency
during use; and design for disassembly and remanufacture, reuse
and recycling; and novel approaches such as inspiration from nature
(biomimetics) or combinations of innovative products with tailored
services.
Innovative producers are responding to these
challenges in part by adopting a sustainable design approach to
new products and services. The best of these offer features, form
and function as good as or better than conventional products,
with more benign environmental impacts, and with positive effects
on the producers' costs and competitiveness.
Projects supported include:
Future Generation Plastics for Ultimate Sustainability
(FuturePlas) project which is looking to reduce the amount of
plastic used to make a component by 30 per cent, reduce component
weight by 30 per cent (hence reduce energy use through life),
and improve the recyclability of reinforced plastics (thereby
diverting material from landfill). This will be achieved by developing
the next generation of lightweight, high strength, recyclable
polymers, reinforced with polymer fibres, to produce self-reinforced
plastics.
REFLECT: Resistant Flooring from Ecological
Technology. Interface, a world leader in sustainable business
practice, and Queen Mary University of London are, propose to
work with partners to develop further a patented ecological engineering
material "Zelfo", as a "closed loop" hard
flooring system. The project will provide a sustainable option
in the fast growing hard flooring market.
The Technology Strategy Board also supports
a number of Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTNs) including the Resource
Efficiency KTN focused on minimisation and recycling of industrial
waste, the Integrated Pollution Management KTN focused on contaminated
land and groundwater remediation and the Materials KTN. KTNs bring
together people from businesses, universities, research, finance
and technology organisations to stimulate innovation through knowledge
exchange.
GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT
Government procurement can be a powerful tool
to create new markets, and pull through innovative technologies
to serve these. Sustainable procurement policies exist, at national,
regional and local levels, but need to be supported by demonstration
activities which de-risk the process.
Innovation Platforms being taken forward by
the Technology Strategy Board are designed to link research with
procurement opportunity in areas where there are major societal
challenges. We are currently supporting Innovation Platforms in
areas including Low Impact Buildings and Low Carbon Vehicles.
An Innovation Platform creates the opportunity
to bring together key partners (Government and business) to address
a major societal challenge and to open up market opportunities
to increase business investment in R&D and innovation. Drawing
on Technology Strategy Board and other funding mechanisms, Innovation
Platforms involve the integration of a range of technologies,
combined with better co-ordination of policy and regulation, linked
through to public procurement opportunities. Using a challenge-based
approach where public procurement opportunities are made more
visible over a longer period of time would give business greater
confidence to invest in the research necessary and so pull through
technologies to the market much quicker.
October 2007
Annex A
CASE STUDIES
Using thermal plasma technology to create a valuable
product from hazardous waste
As work to recover energy from waste increases
in the UK, an important issue for the industry is the development
of sustainable methods for managing air pollution control (APC)
residues. These are a hazardous waste generated by cleaning gaseous
emissions to the levels required by regulation. Tetronics Ltd
is leading a consortium to research the use of plasma technology
in creating an integrated solution that produces an ecologically
stable glass-ceramic product for use in the construction industry.
Air pollution control (APC) residues are a highly
alkaline hazardous waste, containing volatile heavy metals, dioxins,
furans and a high soluble salt content, that result from the commercial
recovery of energy from waste (EfW). In the UK, the current APC
disposal methods in use are likely to become commercially unsustainable,
due to increasingly stringent environmental regulations. At the
same time, new energy recovery capacity is expected to add to
the 128,000 tonnes of APC residues currently produced in the UK
each year, by an additional 40,000 tonnes every year for up to
seven years.
Tetronics Ltd, a world leader in DC plasma technology,
and Imperial College London have created a consortium to run a
three-year collaborative project exploring the potential of applying
plasma technology to the APC disposal challenge. Plasma technology
is an advanced thermal conversion technology that delivers high
destruction efficiencies to produce a stable vitrified slag with
exceptional ecological performance characteristics. Costing £2.4
million, the project is part-funded by the Technology Strategy
Board and was launched in late 2005.
Tetronics Ltd and Imperial College London, leading
researchers in process development, waste reuse and materials
science, are running the project in partnership with incinerator
operators Onyx SELCHP and Grundon, environmental consultants Enviros,
Hampshire County Council, and industrial symbiosis companies Akristos
and Ballast Phoenix.
KEY BENEFITS
—
reducing hazardous waste in the UK—APC residue
currently totals 128,000 tonnes annually, with an expected increase
of 40,000 tonnes per year over the next four to seven years;
—
the creation of a proven, commercially viable waste
management technology that allows treatment close to source with
minimal environmental impact; and
—
the development of an integrated process that transforms
APC residues into a useful product, with the potential of saving
170,000 tonnes of virgin raw materials each year.
The current market value of APC residue landfill
disposal is some £21 million per year, and with rising volumes
and increasing levels of landfill tax this may reach £47
million per year within three to six years.
The team believes that a plasma-based technology
addressing the environmental issues will take a significant percentage
of this market, creating a major commercial opportunity alongside
its environmental and social advantages. It also expects that
applying plasma technology to APC management will significantly
reduce reliance on landfill disposal and cut the use of raw materials
in construction. In addition, the efficiency of the process minimises
the scale of treatment plants, enabling economically viable local
waste management.
RECYCLING CARBON
FIBRE
Researchers working on the HIRECAR (High Value
Composite Materials from Recycled Carbon Fibre) collaborative
R&D project are finding ways to recycle carbon fibre composite
materials for use in car manufacture and other applications.
Current annual worldwide carbon fibre consumption
is 30,000 tonnes. The principal markets are aircraft, racing cars
and sporting goods. At present there is no way to recycle carbon
fibre materials—more than 100 tonnes of highly valuable
material, either end-of-life goods or scrap from manufacture,
goes into landfill every year in the UK alone. These materials
can cost as much as £120 per kilo. The high stiffness and
strength and low density of carbon fibre composites could be used
in new designs to reduce the weight and increase the safety of
family cars, resulting in significant reductions in emissions
and fuel consumption.
A research project funded by the Technology
Strategy Board is working on ways to extract the high value carbon
fibre from end-of-life components and from manufacturing scrap,
typically offcuts of woven "prepreg"—materials
impregnated with epoxy resin which are typically used in military
aircraft and racing cars.
The University of Nottingham is the lead partner
in the project, which also involves: Advanced Composites Group,
Dow Automotive, Ford Motor Company, Technical Fibre Products and
Toho Tenax GmbH. The project started in March 2005 and runs for
three years.
KEY BENEFITS
OBJECTIVES
The aim of the project is to find ways to recycle
scrap carbon fibre materials and convert them into useful materials.
This will provide a sustainable lifecycle for carbon fibre for
use in automotive applications and enable a step-change in design
and performance of vehicle structures. It will help automotive
manufacturers meet EU end-of-life directives for the next generation
of vehicles. These state that 80 per cent of the materials used
in a new car have to be genuinely recyclable. At present, this
limits the amount of carbon fibre that can be used in vehicles—because
there is no viable way to reuse it.
Use of carbon fibre in cars will reduce the
weight of vehicles, and so lower fuel consumption. It will also
increase car safety, because the carbon fibre materials are extremely
strong and can absorb much higher levels of impact energy.
SOLUTIONS
The team has developed two methods for recovering
the carbon fibre materials: The preferred route for end-of-life
components is a fluidised bed technology where the fibres and
resin are separated at high temperatures, energy is extracted
from the polymer and the fibres are left in a clean condition,
but with slightly reduced properties. The use of supercritical
fluids on scrap new materials has been studied for the first time.
The project is looking at three ways of using
the recycled carbon fibres: in bulk moulding compounds for smaller,
non load-bearing components; as a sheet-moulding compound, where
carbon fibre is rolled together with sheets of polymer; and as
recycled materials in load bearing, 3D shell structures, such
as the floorpan of the vehicle.
RESULTS
Recycled carbon fibres have been made into bulk
and sheet moulding compound forms and have been successfully moulded
into laboratory-scale samples. The team intends to characterise
the issues around supercritical fluid type, temperature, pressure,
and yield for the typical epoxy-based resins used in composite
material manufacturing processes.
21 Sustainable use and management of natural resources,
EEA report No 9/2005. http://reports.eea.eu.int/eea_report_2005_9/en Back
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