Dr Salvatore Grasso
PhD, MSc, FHEA, Royal Society Industry Fellow
Research Overview
Spark Plasma Sintering, Cold Sintering, Flash Sintering, Strong magnetic field alignment, Ultra-fast high temperature sintering, Solid state batteries, Transparent ceramics, Low energy processing
Interests
His doctoral work (2008–2011) at the University of Tsukuba–NIMS (National Institute for Materials Science), Japan, was focused on electric current assisted sintering techniques and magnetic field processing. During his postdoctoral research at Queen Mary University of London he pioneered the development of Flash Spark Plasma Sintering and contributed to the creation of the MagMat facility (www.magmat.uk). Between 2017 and 2022 he held a Professorship at Southwest Jiaotong University (China), leading an international research group on novel sintering techniques.
His current research harnesses intense electric fields (voltages up to tens of kV, currents up to 1 Mega Ampere) and magnetic fields (15 Tesla) to process advanced ceramics in seconds rather than hours, targeting a step change in embodied energy and carbon footprint. The programme spans ultrafast high temperature sintering, cold sintering inspired by geological lithification, and magnetic field assisted microstructural design, with applications in solid oxide fuel cells, photovoltaic recycling, solid state batteries and transparent ceramics. This work is supported by an EPSRC/Defra grant (Green Loop, 2026–2029) and a Royal Society Industry Fellowship with Ceres Power (2025–2029). He is Editor of the Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and the International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology, and Editorial Board Member of Advances in Applied Ceramics and MDPI Journals Materials, Metals and Coatings.