ANFF-Q would like to congratulate our clients in securing funding for these exciting collaborative industry-partnered research projects in bioengineering and advanced materials design.

• Professor Amin Abbosh and his colleagues will team up with industry partner EM Solutions Pty Ltd to develop compact millimeter-wave terminal for LEO satellite communications to deal with the digital inequality facing rural and remote Australia.

• Professor Chengzhong (Michael) Yu and Dr Ashok Kumar Nanjundan will partner with Graphene Manufacturing Australia Pty Ltd to develop a new generation of high performance and low-cost cathode matertials for rechargeable aluminum ion batteries.

• Dr Esteban Marcellin and colleagues will partner with Bondi Bioworks Pty Ltd to engineer modified freshwater and marine cyanobacteria to biosynthesise flavours and fragrances. The project will also enable solar biomanufacturing to underpin the emergence of an advanced Australian bioeconomy.

• Professor Han Huang, Professor Darren Martin, Professor Lisbeth Grondahl, Dr Mingyuan Lu, Dr Michael Heitzmann, Dr Ashok Kumar Nanjundan and colleagues will be developing high performance nanocomposite coatings for domestic appliances. They will team up with industry partners Graphene Manufacturing Australia Pty Ltd and HBIS Group Co. Ltd.

• Professor Kazuhiro Nogita and his colleagues will team up with industry partner Bluescope Steel Limited to develop microstructure control of hot-dip coated Al-Zn based alloy layers on steel. This project aims to address and understand an intermittent processing problem using innovative approaches involving characterisation by synchrotron techniques and state-of-the art microscopy. Expected outcomes include increased manufacturing efficiencies by identifying the cause of an intermittent processing defect and implementing methods of controlling this defect.

• Professor Longbin Huang and Dr Tuan Nguyen and their colleagues will partner with Queensland Alumina Limited and RTA Yarwun Pty Ltd to develop a field-based technology using marine microbes and halophytic plants to accelerate in-situ soil formation from bauxite residues under field conditions. This technology is expected to be transferable and adaptable across other alumina refineries in Australia.

• Dr Michael Heitzmann, Professor Darren Martin and Dr Mahshid Firouzi will team up with Oilfield Piping Systems Pty Ltd and Duromer Products Pty Ltd to develop next generation smart and durable wear guides for natural gas wells.

• Dr Muxina Konarova and her colleagues will team up with industry partners Southern Oil Refining Pty Ltd and NBC Meshtec Inc to develop nano-engineered catalysts for sustainable fuel production from waste. The project aims to simultaneously reduce the burden of non-recyclable waste currently going to landfill in Australia, and offset Australia’s reliance on imported diesel to support industry and transport needs.

• Professor Paul Burn and his colleagues will team up with industry partner Heliatek to elucidate the morphology of organic semiconductors at an atomic level. Controlling morphology and self-organization at a molecular level is key to advancing the performance of optoelectronic devices such as organic light-emitting diodes and organic photovoltaic cells. Recently developed molecular simulation techniques can provide unique insight into atomic-level structural details that determine device efficiency. The project will determine if such simulations are sufficiently accurate to be industrially useful.

• Professor Warwick Bowen, Dr Christopher Baker and Dr Glen Harris are partnering with Dr Luke Uribarri and Lockheed Martin Corporation to develop scalable and reversible computing with integrated nanomechanics. This project aims to build the first scalable computing architecture based on nanomechanical motion, integrated on a silicon chip and proven in harsh environments. This could extend the performance of computers in space and high-radiation environments, e.g. allowing robust satellite stabilisation.

• Professor Zhiguo Yuan and his colleagues will team up with industry partners Queensland Urban Utilities, Melbourne Water Corporation, District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority and Water Corporation to reduce sewer corrosion through model-supported ventilation control. The project aims to develop critical models to predict the corrosion process in response to ventilation and dynamic wastewater and atmospheric conditions, enabling model-based sewer ventilation design and operation. The project also aims to deliver novel, field-demonstrated ventilation strategies. The project findings will be incorporated in the Australian ventilation design and operation guidelines.

We look forward to supporting these projects and these partnerships.