Our Project

Developing Self-Healing Technologies

Self-healing materials are an emerging technology, currently being investigated by researchers in academia and industry across the globe.

‘Manufacturing Immortality’ was a three year EPSRC funded consortium seeking to facilitate a step change in UK manufacturing through the development of new self-healing materials. We investigated the sustainability benefits of self-healing materials and how they fit in a Circular Economy. As well as developing innovative materials, we used ground-breaking research methods, such as machine learning, paving the way for the future of research and materials.

Aims

Working in an interdisciplinary consortium of researchers drawn from seven different universities, the Manufacturing Immortality project aimed to:

1. To develop bio-digitally enabled novel approaches for the predictable and reproducible assembly of evolvable bio-hybrid products and devices that possess the inherent ability to self-heal.

2. To employ the methods developed in (1) to facilitate the assembly and testing of evolvable self-healing products and devices within three application areas: electrochemical energy devices, e.g. fuel cells and batteries; consumer electronics; and safety critical systems, e.g. nuclear

3. To devise and implement new business models that account for the system wide savings that will be achieved as a result of the adoption of this new manufacturing technology; specifically, reductions in resource usage, recycling, repair, and remanufacturing costs.