FIRM ON HUNT FOR A GREENER FUTURE
Ceramic specialist teams up with industry leaders
A World-leading company with two bases in North Staffordshire has joined forces with leaders from across industry to explore opportunities to drive lowcarbon innovation in the production of vital materials used across everyday life.
Lucideon - which employs staff in Penkhull and Stone was one of the partners at the Foundation Industry Strategy Workshop at Pembroke House at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
The event was organised by the Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium (FISC), formed last year by global leaders in innovation, research, and technology from the cement, metal, glass, ceramic, paper, polymer, and chemical industries.
Foundation industries produce materials that are a key component of everyday life, including cement and metal in buildings, glass and ceramic components in mobile phones, ceramic crockery and tiles as well as products including shampoo, and even greeting cards.
But they are also responsible for 10 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.
In a bid to address this figure, Lucideon, along with CPI, Glass Futures, Materials Processing Institute, and the Henry Royce Institute are working on the FISC programme to deliver solutions to drive low-carbon innovation for the UK’S vital materials sector.
The work is being undertaken under FISC’S first project, the Economic Materials Innovation for the Sustainable and Efficient Use of Resources (ECONOMISER), which is funded by Innovate UK as part of the Transforming Foundation Industries (TFI) Challenge and builds on the existing innovation capability of the partners.
Lucideon is supporting the project with its insight into materials technology, processes, and testing, with particular emphasis on ceramics, as well as its application of cross-industry insight and materials science expertise. Chief marketing officer Richard Goodhead said: “The event in Liverpool gave partners involved in the consortium an opportunity to come together to discuss our joint approach.
“This is an exciting collaboration, which will lead to the mutual enhancement of capabilities for all parties involved and provide a powerful force multiplier for positive change. By working together, FISC can draw on the capabilities of its partners to help the companies operating in the foundation industries, and the supply chains that use their materials, to improve.”
FISC is leading projects based on six themes, covering alternative fuels, circular economy, digital sensing, process optimisation, sustainable materials, and training and skills.
As one of the FISC partners, Lucideon is taking the lead in three key workstreams, geopolymer scale-up, hydrogen kiln conversion for sustainable ceramics production, and process optimisation within the ceramics industry through the application of sensors, collection of time-series data, and machine learning data processing.