Pilling, R., Coles, S.R., Knecht, M. et al. (1 more author) (2023) Multi-criteria discovery, design and manufacturing to realise nanomaterial potential. Communications Engineering, 2. 78. ISSN 2731-3395
Abstract
Advanced nanomaterials have a central role to play in the pursuit of sustainable development goals. Applications span sectors, including energy, medicine and environmental clean-up. However, despite an explosion in their discovery and synthesis, these materials are struggling to make it through to commercial production. Their development is hampered by costly, resource intensive and scale-sensitive processes. Herein, we highlight widespread early-stage reliance on single metric optimisation as a primary cause of development failure and, conversely, emphasise the importance of multi-criteria thinking within both research design and execution, and particularly through discovery and design stages. We formulate the PSEC challenge (i.e. Performance, Scalability, Environment and Cost) as a means to integrate broader sustainability thinking with precise technical solutions. We propose overt emphasis on a correspondingly expanded specification of critical material attributes to better direct and integrate research. We highlight the potential for development of MCDA (multi-criteria decision aiding) tools and opportunities for generating, consolidating, and extensively exploiting good quality whole-system data. Our paper represents a community call-to-action so that nanomaterial discoveries can reach the markets and fulfil their sustainable development potential.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Chemical engineering; Nanoscale materials |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL EP/R025983/1 ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL EP/P006892/1 ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL EP/V051458/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 Oct 2023 15:44 |
Last Modified: | 04 Dec 2023 14:40 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s44172-023-00128-6 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:204077 |