At SMASH (Sustainable Materials at Sheffield), our mission is to drive new advances in the development of materials and processes for sustainable infrastructure, environmental remediation, waste management, and clean energy. This will enable industry to meet the needs of our society both sustainably and cost-effectively, improving the well-being of our society and environment.

The development of better, cheaper, and more sustainable materials is often impeded by a lack of understanding of the fundamental interactions occurring at the atomic or nanoscale which dictate material performance, and a lack of understanding of processes and systems required to promote resource efficiency, reuse, and upcycling. Examples include materials for sustainable infrastructure, safe disposal of radioactive waste, pollutant recovery and energy production.

Improved design and optimisation of these requires insight into the composition-‘local-structure’-property relationships, reaction mechanisms and kinetics, and surface chemistry occurring during material synthesis, processing and use.

We use cutting-edge characterisation and modelling approaches to determine the fundamental interactions occurring during material synthesis, processing and use, and to identify and match waste and resource flows. We use this knowledge to design novel materials and processes to build a sustainable future, and promote a circular economy.