Safe and sustainable development of advanced materials: UK National Knowledge Sharing Network Workshops

Abstract

The term advanced materials (AM) is used widely to cover a large number of diverse new innovative materials, including nanomaterials, advanced composites, innovative surface coatings, (bio)polymers, porous and particle systems, ceramics, smart and metamaterials and advanced fibres and textiles. With any new materials, there are commercial and performance advantages that need to be balanced with any potential environmental, health and safety issues, for example, around exposure, toxicity, sustainability and waste. Key players in the UK from government bodies, research, measurement and standardisation organisations, academia and industry came together to consider these issues via two online workshops in April 2021 and February 2023. At each event, scene-setting presentations by key experts were followed by discussions addressing salient issues, including, benefits and barriers to AM commercialisation, potential environmental, health and safety issues, and safe(r) by design approaches. The first workshop served as a starting point to share views on the potential societal benefits of AM and perceived obstacles to their wider adoption. The second workshop focused on safety by design, life cycle analysis and challenges faced at different points in the supply chain. In addition to confirming findings from previous studies, these workshops also highlighted specific challenges that are faced by small to medium sized enterprises (SME). These workshops provided a unique opportunity for policy makers, regulators, standardisation bodies, funding bodies and academia to understand the concerns of industry and researchers, who develop and work with AM. This included what they felt would help support them in their aims of developing innovative, commercially successful, safe and sustainable AM.