NanoKTN Announces Nanomission 2010

23rd February 2010

ES Admin

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The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN) today announced its next Nanomission to Germany and Switzerland on 2nd-5th March 2010. This mission will focus on developments in production processes for manufacturing nanomaterials and nanocoatings for renewable energy applications.

The Nanomission 2010 is a collaboration between the NanoKTN and the Science & Innovation Network (SIN) of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). The mission will provide a framework for networking and partnership building in the important area of nano-enabled clean energy. Outcomes for the UK delegates are expected to parallel those previously achieved including collaboration in EU funded research, commercial partnerships, and academic exchanges.

UK delegates this year include Teer Coatings, Ilika Technologies, Promethean Particles, Plasma Quest, Johnson Matthey, MAST Carbon, Surion Energy, Carbon Trust, Thomas Swan & Co Ltd, Nanofactory, Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Technology Strategy Board, and the Universities of Surrey and Greenwich, UCL and Imperial College London.

Nanomission 2010 will comprise seminars, discussions and opportunities for networking, including workshops at host companies: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, The Paul Scherrer Institute Villigen in Switzerland, and ETH in Zurich.

Manufacturing processes to be presented and discussed include plasma and chemical deposition (PVD, CVD), sol-gel materials processing, nanomaterials manufacture, coatings technologies, nanopolymers, nanoparticles and nanostructured materials, and device manufacture.

Clean energy applications to be considered include; organic photovoltaics; batteries & supercapacitors; hydrogen storage; fuel cells; bio-derived energy; thermoelectric materials and insulation materials.

The mission team are hoping to match or exceed the £510k generated from the previous mission which represented an exceptional return on UK Government funding invested. This income was split into £245k of sales won and £275k of research funding, plus the setting up of academic exchanges.

Established by the Technology Strategy Board, the NanoKTN is managed by Centre for Process Innovation Ltd, a leading technology development and consulting company.