CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN OF MATERIALS AND DIGITIZED CIRCULAR MANUFACTURING

Climate change, critical material shortages and environmental degradation pose an existential threat to the entire world. Immediate action is needed to transform the global economy towards a more circular economy with less intensive use of fossil energy and limited resources and more use of recyclable materials. Recyclable materials and digitized manufacturing techniques will play a critical role in this transformation. Substantial advancements will be needed to achieve a more intelligent materials design to enhance both functionality and sustainability. This closely connects with the manufacturing processes. An integrated design of materials and manufacturing creates new opportunities and markets as well as improves the eco efficiency of the existing products we rely on. Moreover, this design needs to be better consider end of (current) life and better support cradle to cradle (circular) approaches. All these must be achieved without compromising, and indeed improving on, the standards and quality that consumers and producers expect from existing products. The broad aim of IDm2 is to create a centre of excellence at Liberec, with a robust and durable pipeline of future R&D projects, to catalyze a step change in the integrated design of materials and eco-effective („green“) product manufacturing to support the development of circular economy in line with the Green Deal. Example themes include the development of new hybrid materials and structures combining functionality at macro and nano scales, designing into products complete recyclability / ease of disassembly, substitutions (e.g. biofibres and bioplastics) and e.g. sub-micro structured functional surfaces (e.g. switchable glues) allowing composite separation back to original materials. The unique selling point of the centre will be specific data and AI assisted developments for both, new material/process developments and the operational efficiency.