Professors Mohan Edirisinghe, Xiao Guo and Julian Evans, of the Department of Materials, have been awarded a Platform Grant worth £429000 to carry out innovative research on Powder-based Processing and Modelling at the Centre for Materials Research in Queen Mary.

This is the first EPSRC Platform grant awarded to Queen Mary and allows the investigators to support three research fellows and fund several external collaborations in the UK, Europe, USA and China over the next 4 years, carrying out research at the leading edge of ceramics, composites, advanced intermetallics, energy storage materials, biomaterials and new freeform fabrication methods.

During the last three years, the team have succeeded in securing a research income of ~ £ 3 million including substantial funding from EPSRC, the Royal Society and industry while publishing over 150 key papers during this period. The platform grant enables the investigators to take a more strategic view of their ceramic/metal
powder-based processing and modelling research, in particular the understanding, development and optimization of appropriate dry powder and suspension-based systems for jet printing, electrostatic atomization, tape-casting and powder coating for application in both engineering and medicine.