Thu, 24 August, 2023
A number of novel projects – funded through successful collaborative proposals by like-minded consortia partners to UK and European funding programmes, as well as two National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) PhDs – are due to be presented at this year’s European Corrosion Congress: EUROCORR 2023 by researchers from the Materials Innovation Centre (MatIC).
The annual European Corrosion Congress (EUROCORR) is a must-attend conference for engineering technology professionals, who come together to discuss, share their knowledge and exchange expertise on, matters related to corrosion including the challenges it presents to various industries and how these are being addressed. This year, EUROCORR takes place from 27 – 31 August 2023 in Brussels, Belgium, with the focus of ‘driving corrosion prediction and protection towards a circular economy’, and also includes an accompanying exhibition.
MatIC, a strategic partnership between the University of Leicester and TWI, is being represented at EUROCORR 2023 by seven researchers, each of whom will give a presentation on a different project that MatIC is currently working on:
Adamantini Loukodimou, Research Associate – presentation of poster: 'Towards Sustainable Waste Management – Enhancing recycling of multi-material waste using green solvents’, in the Polymers and Advanced Materials session. The poster is based on the Horizon 2020 funded Sol-Rec2 project which targets the development and implementation of green solvents for improving the sorting, separation and recycling of pharma blister packs and laminate consumer packaging waste, which consist of multiple layers of polymers and aluminium.
Adriana Castro Vargas, NSIRC PhD student – oral presentation in the Marine Corrosion session on the ProCoat project: ‘Assessment of damaged thermal spray aluminium coating in synthetic seawater by using complementary techniques’. Adriana’s work presents the results of a new method that uses complementary techniques, such as in situ imaging and an analytical rotator combined with monitoring of open circuit potential (OCP), to understand the performance of thermally sprayed aluminium (TSA) coatings in simulated marine immersion service.
Arunima Bhuvanendran Nair Jayakumari, NSIRC PhD student – talk, based on Arunima's PhD project, on ‘Mechanistic understanding of hydrogen uptake and diffusion in novel alloys for hydrogen service’, focusing on electrochemical determination of hydrogen uptake and diffusion within a novel class of alloys. Arunima will also give a poster presentation on the Horizon 2020 funded GeoHEX project: ‘ Advancing geothermal heat exchanger efficiency: investigating coating solutions for enhanced heat transfer and reduced corrosion in heat exchangers’ which will explore the progression of coatings tailored for geothermal heat exchangers and give an insight into their potential to enhance heat transfer efficiency.
Corentin Penot, Research Associate – talk, taking place in the CO2 Corrosion in Industrial Applications session, on ‘Performance evaluation of copper catalysts for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS)’, based on a paper produced for the CoCaCO2la project. Corentin is investigating the effect of CO2 capture media on the copper catalyst used for CO2 conversion, with the aim of quantifying the changes that occur in the catalyst. The project is being funded by the Accelerating Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Technologies (ACT) 3 programme, an initiative between 14 countries including the UK under BEIS.
Dr Kranthi Mariam, Marie Curie Fellow – during this oral presentation, based on a paper on the INHALE project, Dr Mariam will give the talk ‘Electrodeposition of zinc in ionic liquids – a comparative study’. INHALE, funded by Horizon 2020, is examining novel, low-toxic, halide-free, non-aqueous electrolytes, comparing them against halide-based and conventional aqueous electrolytes, for application in zinc coatings. The aim of this detailed analysis is to support industry’s adoption of halide-free, non-aqueous systems for diverse uses.
Vikas Kumar, Research Associate – presentation on the Horizon Europe funded Sunrey project: Boosting SUstaiNability, Reliability and EfficiencY of perovskite PV through novel materials and process engineering. Dr Kumar’s talk on ‘Degradation mechanisms in perovskite materials and devices’ will take place in the Green & Low Carbon Energy Technologies session, and cover potential degradation mechanisms in perovskite solar cell devices and mitigation strategies to enhance their life time.
Shiladitya Paul, Director of MatIC – presentation on the FORGE project entitled ‘Development of high entropy alloys for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) applications’ which was co-authored with Amir Shamsa, Dibakor Boruah and Catherine Leahy of TWI, Krzysztof Wieczerzak of EMPA, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Jihad Zraibi and Marzuk Kamal of AeonX AI (a Member of the TWI Innovation Network), Alvise Bianchin of MBN Nanomaterials (Project Coordinator) and Sokkalingam Rathinavelu of MatIC. The project, funded under the Horizon 2020 programme, is developing cost-effective, protective coatings, based on new, compositionally complex materials, including metal alloys and ceramics, that can provide the required hardness, chemical stability and gas barrier properties for challenging applications in energy-intensive industries such as aluminium, steel and cement.
In addition, Dr Paul will also co-chair the Marine Corrosion session at EUROCORR 2023.
Take a look at the conference programme for full details, and be sure to say “hello” to the MatIC team if you are attending the event in person!
Centre Director, Shiladitya Paul said “MatIC’s presence at EUROCORR is set to be its largest project showcase at the conference to date, reflecting our ongoing commitment to collaborative, cutting edge, research and development (R&D), that delivers new technologies and processes to the benefit of different industries across the UK and Europe.”