Dr James Bowen

STFC Impact Acceleration Account one year funding programme. This is a solo award made payable directly to your institution and should be used to support knowledge exchange activities for work funded through STFC’s core science programme in FY 21/22 This award includes funding for (but is not limited to): • Innovation and commercialisation proof-of concept projects • Industry / stakeholder engagement and community building workshops • Industry / stakeholder secondments This award should explicitly be used for knowledge exchange related work for the benefit of STFC-funded researchers working in one or more of the STFC core science remit areas.

Within the chemical laboratory, plastic items are widely used as they provide cheap and convenient options but in recent years the environmental cost of using single-use plastics in labs has been highlighted and so we aim to analyse their reuse. Although plastic items are renowned for their durability, it is known that exposure to UV, abrasion and chemical agents can damage the surface of plastics. Consequently, there is a need to evaluate how single-use plastics may be cleaned and recycled in the laboratory in connection with any deterioration in their properties with each use-cleaning cycle

For an extended stay on the Moon, humans require habitation with substantial protection from space radiation and micrometeorites. The lunar regolith is a readily available resource in-situ, which could be thermally treated to extract oxygen and water as well as build lunar surface elements, e.g., lunar habitats, landing pad and path using 3D printing techniques. Due to the volumetric heating characteristic intrinsic to microwave heating, it is a much more efficient process than solar or laser sintering for large-scale manufacturing and construction. Our proof of concept experiment has demonstrated that microwave energy couples efficiently with lunar simulants and can readily heat it above the melting temperature. However, testing with lunar simulants cannot fulfil some missing information on microwave heating of lunar regolith, which includes the effects of nanophase iron and highly electrostatic and irregular particle shapes under the real lunar environment, i.e. vacuum and microgravity. Therefore, we aim to develop flight hardware of MARVEL (Microwave heating Apparatus of lunar Regolith for Variant Experiments of Lunar ISRU) as a payload for future ESA lunar ISRU missions. MARVEL will (i) collect and compact three samples (25~50g); (ii) heat the samples with 250 W of input power for 60 minutes; and (iii) measure the temperature and volatile release profile every second until it is cooled down to ambient temperature; to demonstrate the potential of microwave heating for construction and oxygen/water extraction. The ESA’s ISRU demonstrator mission includes a core payload to demonstrate oxygen extraction from lunar soils and secondary payloads demonstrating other aspects of lunar ISRU. Our proposed MARVEL payload could potentially address both these challenges with a unique and enabling technology for Europe. The initial concept of MARVEL at TRL 2, submitted to the ESA RFI of Lunar ISRU Demonstration Platform in December 2018, has made more progress with new consortium members. With the success of this project, we will (i) develop a model of microwave heating behaviour of lunar regolith under lunar conditions; and (ii) establish crucial criteria for developing a microwave heating-based fabrication method, including 3D Printing. 

Two regions of a 300 mm wafer will be analysed: Centre Edge The wafer is coated with a carbon-based hardmask thin film, to be used as an electron beam resist, for nanolithography. AFM images will be recorded at each location. Surface topography images will be presented. Surface roughness will be analysed. Two wafers will be measured.

Andrew Avery at Unilever R&D Port Sunlight, with whom I have a long-standing collaborative relationship, has asked me to manufacture a batch of silicon microcantilevers. I will keep these for our future projects together. These cantilevers have been used in the Projects: 1560201: Single Fibre Tribometer Throughput Study 590478: Feasibility Study for a new Fibre Friction Measurement Methodology Specification: Thickness = 12.5 um Width = 50 um Length = 550 um Spring Constant = 22.3 N/m Resonant Frequency = 54.7 kHz These cantilevers worked really well during our previous projects. They are mechanically stable and resistant to twisting during sliding. A cantilever with typical thickness (0.5-2.0 um) would not be as resistant to twisting. They are manufactured bespoke by Nu Nano Ltd, one silicon wafer at a time, yielding around 250-300 cantilevers: Cantilever reference: 10A Quotation: NNQ20060 Cost ex. VAT: GBP 6,373.00

This facility will be a capability unique in Europe, providing pioneering materials characterisation measurements for engineers, chemists, physicists, and materials scientists. It will enable transformative research programmes under the EPSRC themes of Energy, Engineering, Global Uncertainties, Healthcare Technologies, Manufacturing the Future, Physical Sciences, Quantum Technologies, and Research Infrastructure, achieved through the provision of a remotely accessible facility capable of measuring structural changes in materials during temperature ramps.

Manufacture of polar and non-polar surfaces for Omya, Switzerland Polar = OH surface Non-polar = CH3 surface 5 units for each surface type Project requires JB to spend 3-4h in a lab with a fume cupboard The surfaces will be manufactured using surface active self-assembly of commercially available molecules Project to be performed as soon as JB can access Venables laboratories

Humans are explorers, and the Moon is expected to play a vital role in our endeavour to expand our presence into space. However, a sustainable and affordable exploration of the Solar System cannot rely solely on Earth’s resources and must use materials obtained and processed locally. The current road map agreed upon by several international space agencies envisages a long-duration presence on the Moon by 2028, initiated through the Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway and supported by commercial service providers. A key aim of this road map is to enable development of In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) to minimise dependency on transporting all resources from Earth. ISRU is a rapidly growing field in Europe as evidenced by recent ISRU workshop in 2019, organised by ESA with over 350 participants from academia and industry. Water, required for life support and propellant, has been identified as the primary resource. However, for an extended stay on the Moon, humans will require habitats with substantial shielding from radiation and micrometeorites damage. Thus, ESA is planning ISRU demonstrator missions by mid to late 2020s, with a core payload provided by industry to demonstrate oxygen extraction from lunar regolith (soil) as well as secondary payloads for demonstrating other aspects of lunar ISRU. For example, lunar regolith could be thermally treated to extract resources and build an outer habitat shell using additive manufacturing techniques (a.k.a. 3D printing) by robots. Proof of concept experiments have demonstrated that microwaves couple efficiently with lunar regolith and sinter/melt it to build 3D structures and enable resource extraction. The Open University (OU) has an extensive ongoing programme of lunar research, including a rich heritage in spacecraft instrumentation, e.g., Ptolemy and the ProsSPA instruments, of which the latter will perform first ISRU demonstration of producing water on the Moon through reduction of regolith using hydrogen. The OU has also recently invested in a custom-designed microwave instrument to evaluate the heating of planetary materials under vacuum; progressing microwave heating experiments from traditional microwaves in the air to a controllable microwave heating in a simulated space environment. Added Value Solutions UK Ltd. (AVS) designs bespoke solutions for space science markets and are developing thrusters using microwave generators designed by VIPER RF, a microwave design consultancy. Thus, the OU has initiated a collaborative project MARVEL (Microwave heating Apparatus for Regolith Variant Experiments for Lunar ISRU) with AVS and VIPER to prepare the groundwork for the UK to lead development of a Microwave Heating Demonstrator (MHD) payload on future missions to the Moon with the flight hardware being developed and built in the UK. The initial concept development of the MHD payload was successfully completed with support from UKSA’s NSTP GEI funding. As a follow-up of the GEI project, this NSTP Pathfinder grant will allow the consortium to develop a complete (including design) concept of the MHD payload. The main objectives of this project are to: (i) develop the detailed features and functional integration of the microwave cavity design, (ii) evaluate the cavity design through computational simulation, and lab-based experiment using the existing bespoke microwave heating system with specific parameters for the MHD payload, (iii) devise a realistic concept and analyse the requirement for developing 1 kW solid-state microwave generator, which can be included in the MHD payload, and (iv) develop a robust payload concept of MHD, and exploit the technological advancements arising from this project to place the UK industry at the forefront of lunar ISRU missions such as ESA’s ISRU demonstrator mission and NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The successful completion of the proposed project will increase the TRL of the MHD payload from 2 to 3/4.

StressMap has been requested to conduct nanoindentation measurements on bovine teeth.

StressMap has been requested to conduct topography and surface of Au thin films.

StressMap has been requested to conduct an assessment of the temperature-dependent physical properties of polymer microcapsules. Three samples are to be analysed using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM).