PVC Innovation Centre
PVC (poly(vinyl chloride)) is one of the five major commodity thermoplastics. It currently has a world market (still growing) of 25 million tonnes per annum, about a quarter of which is produced in Europe. It is a uniquely versatile polymer that is used in a large range of applications in many industry sectors, such as construction, automotive, electrical, packaging, footwear and medical. The industry is strategically important in Europe (including the UK), in terms of polymer supply, additives, product manufacture and applications development.
Loughborough is in a unique position both in terms of personnel and facilities to exploit its position as a major player in this area. The mission of the centre would be “to research, development, networking and training for the world-wide PVC community".
Research into PVC has been
carried out at Loughborough for over thirty years, and has attracted research
council, industrial and EU funding. With the recent appointments of Dr Noreen
Thomas as Lecturer, formerly employed by EVC, one of the two UK manufacturers
of PVC, and Dr Les Holloway (ex Wavin, a major PVC pipe producing company) as
Senior Visiting Fellow in IPTME, our positon has been strengthened further.
Since Noreen’s arrival, our intention has been to put together a research
centre to capitalise on our strengths. The need for this has been precipitated
by an award to Bradford University a substantial WRAP award (£400k) for PVC
recycling which was accompanied by considerable publicity. Investigation has
shown that this resulted from the approach to Bradford by a former student of
theirs, who has interests in recycling, and was unaware of our strengths in
PVC. We therefore need to regain lost ground rapidly. A number of actions have
been taken recently:
·
Inculsion of
replacement facilities for PVC research in our SRIF bid
·
Submission of a network
proposal on the sustainable use of PVC to EPSRC
·
Development of a post graduate
module on PVC Science and Technology for our Materials for Industry programme
by Les Holloway (First run in April 2004)
Initially, the proposed
centre would actually consist of publicising existing activity with a view to
attracting even more support in the future. Funding of publicity is available
from the PVC committee of the Institute of Materials, Mining and Minerals, and
further support will be provided from activity generated. Staff involved would
be B Haworth, N Thomas, D J Hitt, M Gilbert (IPTME); P Fleming (Civil and
Building Engineering); Prof B Brooks ((ex) Chemical Engineering) and L R
Holloway. A brochure would be produced, with an associated web-site.
In November 2003 we are
organising a PVC symposium at Loughborough in colloboration with IOM3,
which is run triennially, interleaved with a major IOM3 PVC
conference held in Brighton, for which I have been on the organising committee
for many years. The Loughborough Symposium would provide an excellent
opportunity to launch the centre – indeed we have already left a slot in the
conference programme for this purpose.
Prof Marianne Gilbert
18 November 2003