Two UK High Value Manufacturing Catapult centres partner up
The aim is to provide UK manufacturers with a more connected route from lab to production line.
The National Composites Centre (NCC) and CPI will jointly develop critical innovation capabilities for materials.
The partnership formally aligns scale-up expertise and capability across the full materials lifecycle, from polymer and process chemistry at CPI, to materials manufacturing and product development at NCC.
It will provide UK manufacturers with a more connected route, accelerating the development and adoption of critical new materials. The initial focus will be on carbon-fibre development
Next-generation aerospace, energy and defence products all rely on carbon fibre, but the UK has no domestic end-to-end production capability to produce this material, relying entirely on imports.
To address this, the partnership’s initial focus will be to develop sovereign innovation capability in this strategically important material, generating new intellectual property, strengthening the UK supply base, and reducing reliance on oversea sources.
Recognised in the Government’s Industrial Strategy and Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan, the work will also support advances in product performance, cost and sustainability.
NCC’s new Carbon Fibre Development Facility, opening later this year, will provide the UK with a unique fibre research and innovation capability. The facility will house two manufacturing development lines to enable industry to test, de-risk and scale new carbon-fibre formulations and processing techniques.
In parallel, CPI will establish two complementary development capabilities focused on optimising the building blocks of carbon fibre - the process chemistry and associated formulation of its key ingredients. These outputs will feed directly into NCC’s new facility.
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