Current research involves developing processes towards sustainable and inexpensive functional materials including high quality transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films on float glass, photocatalysts and superhydrophobic materials. For TCO applications, replacement materials for Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) are being developed. These materials are used in low-e window coatings (&gt;5B pa), computers, phones and photovoltaic devices. Indium is listed as a critical element- available in limited amounts often in unstable geopolitical areas. Tin metal has had the biggest rise in price of any metal consecutively in the last four years (valued at &gt;30K per ton) and indium is seen as one of the most difficult to source elements. We have been developing sustainable upscaled routes to TCO materials from precursors containing earth abundant elements (titanium, aluminium, zinc) with equivalent or better figures of merit to existing TCOs. Our method uses Aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition to develop these large scale coatings. A major problem with superhydrophobic surfaces is their low surface robustness, which limits their application as their micro- or nanoscale surface roughness is mechanically weak and easily abraded. We have developed a facile method for making robust superhydrophobic and self-cleaning surfaces from both hard (metal or glass) and soft (cotton or paper) materials. The issue of low surface robustness associated with most superhydrophobic coatings was addressed by developing a method to bond the self-cleaning coatings to the substrates by using spray adhesives, which promoted robustness

Sustainable manufacturing of functional materials

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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