Yesterday, I got to take part in the launch of the Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Networks report on “Materials Security” – available here. Followers of this blog will know that Materials UK has a long-standing interest in this subject and so, it didn’t take too much effort by Arnold Black, the energetic Director of the KTN, to persuade me to say a few words. The meeting was fairly crowded with a cross-section of MPs, Lords, public servants and businesspeople, and the resulting discussion, chaired by the host Barry Sheerman was spirited and informed. I hope the KTN is suitably proud.

As a matter of record, here is what I said.

“Arnold’s request for me to give this short talk falls into the category people in this building refer to as “courageous”. There are 2 main reasons for this.

The first is that I am not an economist. I worked for 28 years in industry and – to my knowledge – never met an economist. I therefore never learned their language. This has given me a serious problem in my newer roles working with government in that I haven’t yet met an economist I understand. Economists use strange words. They think big. They consider the flow of money around our planet. They consider what life would be like in 100 years. They scare me!

The second is a real admission. Although I am a chemist, I am an organic polymer chemist. This means I never bothered much to go beyond the first 2 lines of the Periodic Table and regard the catalytic properties of some metals as little short of magic.

The subject of this document is, however, what economists do, and we would do well to make the extra effort to understand them. This is about how we use the Earth’s resources – by which we mostly mean metals.

In my lifetime, we have used more of the Earth’s resources than we have in the rest of our history – and we are not slowing down. This document sets out to make us think about how to address this situation.

As I see it, the problem comes in the form of 3 questions.

The first question is “is there enough of the particular resource to satisfy the needs of our civilisation?” This is “supply and demand” (literally) on the global scale. It is extraordinarily difficult to work out how much of a particular element exist in our planet. It is in the realm of “earth scientists” to work this out. They tend to talk about how much is in the lithosphere, which is what they call the earth’s crust. We have some elements in abundance, but others are rarer. This is not the whole question though. The other half of the question is “how much do we use?” This is also surprisingly difficult to work out. Copper is a good example, and the work of Tom Graedel and co-workers is cited in this document. They have worked out how much copper is contained in the supply chain. We have copper in pipes, wires, electrical circuits and all manner of things we take for granted. Tom has worked out that in America, every person uses about 170 kg of copper to support his/her lifestyle. The equivalent amount for China is currently 35 kg. If everyone in China had the same lifestyle as the average American, we would need 1.7 billion tonnes to meet the demand. This is more than the “earth scientists” think we have by about 10%.

The second question is ”what does it cost to get it out of the ground?” Metals exist mostly as ores or in complex mixtures with other metals. Extracting them costs energy and (especially for ores which are reduced with carbon) produces lots of carbon dioxide. If you look you will note that Rhodium produces 6 million times more carbon dioxide than Iron in its production. I would have given up using it, but since it costs 10 times more than Gold and I don’t think I use any, this would not achieve much! Many of these rarer metals are vital components in modern electronics or alloys. As we use more, we have to balance out the cost of production with the value in use. This is a case where the economists’ long-term vision is needed. There is an interesting tale in the document about Ruthenium. About a decade ago, some producers decided they could sell more, so invested in research into new uses of Ruthenium. A couple of years ago, these new uses came on-stream and the demand – and hence the price – rocketed. We now have the problem that these new applications are more expensive than anticipated – and that we have dispersed Ruthenium all over the place in little amounts that are difficult to recover.

The third question we need to ask is the most difficult. It is the question of “whether the particular element is the best one for the job”. That story about Ruthenium gives us a clue. If you go looking for new uses for almost any material you will find complacent sitting tenants and you can take their market. This is where people need the imagination to look for the new materials that satisfy the needs of the application – not simply use what everyone else has used before, but look for new materials. People have done this for ages, but the twist now is that they need to bear in mind the environmental cost of their selection. This is where building design into the front end of product development is key. Work out what you are trying to achieve and ask whether the mechanical, chemical and other functional properties are the ones needed. Ask whether they change over time. And then ask for the full lifetime cost of the materials you are considering. How much does it really cost to produce – and eventually dispose of – them – and will it change as we understand and use the environmental cost to make choices?

So, what should you do? You should look at this document. Not as a good read, but as a source of (scary) facts. One of the things than makes decisions in this area difficult is ignorance. If you don’t know the facts, you can’t have any meaningful input to the discussion. Once you’ve read it, you can then ask questions. There are people here this evening whose job it is to look after national and global interests. Ask them!!

I have one other piece of advice – learn to speak economist!”

David

Wyn forwarded me an e-mail notice about an upcoming meeting, politely asking why we weren’t involved. The meeting is in fact organised by Nanocentral (one of the 23 MNT centres), the Chemistry KTN (one of the 24 Knowledge Transfer Networks), Chemicals Northwest and the Northwest Aerospace Alliance. This is where I play my “I’m actually a chemist too” card. The truth is that nanotechnology, as currently configured spans the traditional areas of engineering, materials science and chemistry – and then relies heavily for its ethos on physics! As such, I often find myself discussing routes to nano-materials which are completely chemical, applications which borrow from the macro and micro world, and underlying principles which ought to be physics, but where I can usually only manage physical chemistry.

Part of the fun to be had in this area of science and technology is the overlap of learning, insight and even prejudice that each of the more established disciplines demonstrates in its everyday existence and the challenge each area gets by interacting with the others. So, my response to this meeting is that it sounds interesting and relevant and, although it’s a shame the Materials community isn’t helping make it happen, that’s our problem not the meetings!! The other point to make is that (given the confusion often caused by Governments obsession with starting new things) here are 4 very different organisations who have recognised a shared interest and acted on it.

David

I met with the Materials and Structures National Advisory Committee last Monday at 1 Carlton Terrace. This is an interesting group. If you “Google” the name or the acronym, you will discover that they have been meeting for almost a decade and have produced some interesting papers on aspects of the use of materials. However, despite their obvious ownership by their community, they (along with others, I suspect) are confused by the current landscape. I gave the standard presentation on Materials UK and they asked lots of questions about the relationship between Materials UK, the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network, the Defence and Aerospace Knowledge Transfer Network and the overall goals of the Technology Strategy Board.

I stayed to hear a series of presentations about the environment and projects, learning about the complexity of European funding, the new way the Ministry of Defence is accessing basic research through a consortium of universities and companies and a (quite the best) techno-commercial analysis of the materials needed for the next generation of civil aircraft. I left with a feeling that we, along with many of the newly formed organisations ought to look carefully at this sort of group and realise that their longevity is the best measure of relevance to the community.

David

I have avoided commenting on any particular product or service in this blog until now - but a combination of circumstances leave me no option. For 4 years in the late 90's I was responsible for R&D in ICI Acrylics. That meant that, whatever the question, the answer had to be poly(methyl methacrylate). Although a versatile and fascinating polymer, there were times when the rote response felt wrong, but I also got to see it used in a whole range of applications. This Christmas I got a set of speakers to add to my computer system. They are quite monumentally beautiful - because they are made of acrylic.



I expected them to look good, but wasn't really expecting the quality of sound. I have been asking anyone I know whether the fact that they are made of PMMA has any bearing on the sound quality. That got me thinking about the properties of materials we don't measure. I am of an age where I remember people trying to do clever things with defect free concrete - including, I think I remember, loudspeakers! We take for granted that we know the "zero frequency" properties of materials, but their response over a wide frequency range could determine whether they are good or not in this sort of role.

Does anyone out these either know why these speakers sound so good or know of any other unexpected uses of materials?

David

p.s. The speakers are the "baby" set from a company called Ferguson-Hill

Anyone who has been anywhere near Materials UK over the last year will know that I am a big fan of the work of Tom Graedel. I first met him at an American Chemical Society meeting in Washington several years back. His down to earth approach and rigour of analysis made a large impression on me. The basic idea of his analysis is to map the flows or a particular material and work out where it goes and how much is “working capital” in the system.   more »

On Thursday evening, I gave a short talk at a meeting of Advantage West Midlands Innovation and Technology Council and their materials constituency. I have to admit that I didn’t make a very good job of it. The week had been busy and I hadn’t prepared sufficiently - and then the travel from an afternoon meeting in London to the hotel venue in the middle of Birmingham went badly. I ended up arriving with about 5 minutes to spare and just wasn’t ready. In partial apology to those who heard me, this post is an attempt to frame the argument more coherently!!   more »

I had a really interesting meeting at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) yesterday. This was a result of a combination of meetings over the last year when they have engaged with us on the concept of the Materials Property Validation Centre. It culminated in a discussion after the last Board Meeting and an invite to go and discuss our ideas.   more »

Earlier in the week I went to one of the always excellent NESTA Breakfasts to see Henry Chesbrough talk about Open Innovation and its effect on policy. Followers of this blog will know that I have talked about Open Innovation before and I continue to be fascinated about the use of models to explain organisational behaviour.   more »

Yesterday saw the launch of the Materials for Energy Working Group Strategic Research Agenda at Tate Britain. There were about 150 people there and strong support from just about every conceivable stakeholder. Wyn kicked off the meeting by introducing Sir Brian Bender, the Permanent Secretary of BERR, who was followed in turn by David Clark, the soon-to-be CEO of the Energy Technologies Institute, Iain Gray, the only-just CEO of the Technology Strategy Board, John Wand, the Director of the Materials Programme at the EPSRC and Nick Otter of Alstom Power.    more »

Last week, within a day of one another, I received 2 e-mails. The first was from an old American colleague (old in the sense of I worked with him many years ago rather that he is old!).   more »

I spent yesterday at Innovate 07 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. This is the first of these meetings organised by the Technology Strategy Board in its new guise as an “arms length” body. It was an impressive event and the materials community can take some pride in its relevance to where the Technology Strategy Board is heading.    more »

Yesterday was the first Annual General Meeting for Materials UK. To hold an AGM is a legal requirement of being a company. It is more about dealing with the basics of a company – are you legal, do you have money to continue, who are the directors and so on. What was remarkable was that – as always when the senior people associated with Materials UK get together – the enthusiasm to understand and act on the challenges for our industry kept breaking through.    more »

Today I met with the Materials Chemistry Forum. I have to declare an interest here. Having trained as a polymer scientist I can claim membership of both the Chemistry and Materials Communities – a fact that is useful when the Christmas parties come around.   more »

Last week, from at least 3 different sources, I was referred to the work of the Lords Science and Technology Committee Sub-Committee on Waste Reduction. What I found intrigued me. Their question set demonstrates huge insight into the problem, and manages to take several different views of the subject.    more »

Yesterday, I took part in the 3rd Annual Forum of the National Composites Network. Held at the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon, there were about 100 practitioners from all parts of the supply chain.   more »

I spent some time yesterday at a meeting of the Metals Forum . This was part of my quest to understand what the various bits of the materials community think are important and to explain what Materials UK is – and is not.    more »

I have just spent a few days in Boston at the American Chemical Society National Meeting. I was there as the co-organiser of a symposium entitled “The Polymer Science of Everyday Things” which, as the advert says, does exactly what it says on the tin! This is the third time out for the symposium and this time it reflected the theme of the overall conference and the focus of much of the local activity and concentrated on the use of polymers in medical applications.    more »

Yesterday saw the first birthday party for Materials UK. Actually, today is formally the anniversary of its launch and a reception at the House of Lords can hardly be said to be a “party” but otherwise….   more »

It’s been quite a week for nanotechnology. On Monday the University of Surrey launched yet another task force in the area, on Tuesday the Times had a nanotechnology supplement and there was a series of meetings about public engagement in the area at the Institute of Physics organised by the NEG and Demos . Looking back, however, am not sure I have learned anything useful from all of this activity.   more »

I spent a large chunk of today as part of the review panel of a project being conducted by the UK Centre for Materials Education (UKCME), working on behalf of the Higher Education Authority to evaluate the student learning experience in the discipline of materials science.   more »

This week saw the publication of the eagerly awaited Energy White Paper by the Department of Trade and Industry. Reading it is not for the faint-hearted – it weighs in at 342 pages, with an Executive Summary of 21 pages!!!    more »

Last week I attended the meeting held to mark the first year of operation of the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network. As Wyn has already pointed out, the Materials KTN and Materials UK have an interesting, almost symbiotic, relationship so it was nice to spend time with those who have made the KTN such a success in its first year.   more »

The question I get asked most frequently is “What’s the difference between the Materials KTN and Materials UK?” so I thought it would make a suitable subject for my first addition to the Materials UK weblog.   more »

This Monday saw a meeting to discuss the development of the Materials Property Validation Centre. Feedback to the survey carried out by the National Physical Laboratory formed the basis for a discussion on how to implement the recommendations of the Materials IGT Report most effectively. 101 organisations had taken part in the survey – and 80% had expressed their interest in taking part in this workshop.    more »

Over the last few years, the term “Open Innovation” has been bandied about by a lot of people as the new way of doing things (I am sorry, but I really cannot bring myself to use the word paradigm!). In my final days at ICI we had a few attempts to test the more extravagant claims but I had lost touch with its progress. When I discovered that an old colleague was now the Business Development Director of one of the main players and was giving a presentation in London, I took the opportunity of catching up with him and the subject at the same time.   more »

Following the recommendation of our Honorary President, Lord Haskell, Materials UK has become a member of the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee .   more »

One of the side-effects of being a polymer scientist, is that I have always been able to claim allegiance to the chemistry or materials side according to my mood. On Thursday, I was wearing my chemistry hat and attending the SusChem European Technology Platform Stakeholder Event in Brussels.    more »

On Tuesday I took part in the 5th PowdermatriX annual meeting in Loughborough. Powdermatrix is a node of the Materials KTN and evolved from the Faraday of the same name.    more »

I attended the ‘Innovations for the Built Environment’ Conference and Exhibition at Earls Court last week. It was my first attendance to a re-vamped event that brought together five key themes relating to the built environment (“Ecobuild”, Futurebuild, Regenex, Cityscape and Building for Health) It was, what appeared to be the ‘motorshow’ of the construction industry with around 500 exhibitors.   more »

This Tuesday a few of us met to discuss the next steps the Education and Skills Working Group is taking. The Working Group is co-chaired by Bob John (of TWI) and David Pulling (of GKN) and we were joined by Lord Haskell.    more »