Chemical technologies underpin almost every aspect of our lives, from the energy we use to the materials we rely on and the medications we take. The UK chemical industry generates £73.3 billion revenue and employs 161,000 highly skilled workers. It is highly diverse (therefore resilient) with SMEs and microbusinesses making up a remarkable 96% of the sector. Today's global chemicals industry is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and consumes 20% of oil and gas as carbon feedstock to make products. Decarbonisation (defossilisation) of the chemicals sector is, therefore, urgently required, but to do so presents major technical and societal challenges. New sustainable chemical technologies, enabled by new synthesis, catalysis, reaction engineering, digitalisation and sustainability assessment, are needed. In order to ensure that the UK develops a resource efficient, resilient and sustainable economy underpinned by chemical manufacturing, developments in chemical technologies must be closely informed by whole systems approaches to measure and minimise environmental footprints, understand supply chains and assess economic and technological viability, using techniques such as life cycle assessment and material flow analysis. Lack of access to experts in science and engineering with a holistic understanding of sustainable systems is widely and publicly recognised as a significant risk. It is therefore extremely timely to establish a new EPSRC CDT in Sustainable Chemical Technologies that fully integrates a whole systems approach to training and world leading research in an innovation-driven context. This CDT will train the next generation of leaders in sustainable chemical technologies with new skills to address the growing demand for highly skilled PhD graduates with the ability to develop and transfer sustainable practices into industry and society. The new CDT will be a unique and vibrant focus of innovative doctoral training in the UK by taking full advantage of two exciting new developments at Bath. First, the CDT will be embedded in our new Institute for Sustainability (IfS) which has evolved from the internationally leading Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies (CSCT) and which fully integrates whole systems research and sustainable chemical technologies - two world-leading research groupings at Bath - under one banner. Second, the CDT will operate in close partnership with our recently established Swindon-based Innovation Centre for Applied Sustainable Technologies (iCAST, www.iCAST.org.uk) a £17M partnership for the rapid translation of university research to provide a dynamic innovation-focused context for PhD training in the region. Our fresh and dynamic approach has been co-created with key industrial, research, training and civic partners who have indicated co-investment of over £17M of support. This unique partnership will ensure that a new generation of highly skilled, entrepreneurial, innovative PhD graduates is nurtured to be the leaders of tomorrow's green industrial revolution in the UK.

Recently, the risks from new viral infections have been made evident by emerging viruses such as SARS-COV-2, Zika virus, monkeypox and new strains of influenza. Viral infections need to be detected early and accurately to allow appropriate treatment and prevent serious health complications. Current tests such as real-time polymerase chain reaction takes a long time (~1-2 days), are expensive (~£42 to the consumer) and require highly skilled personnel. Antigen tests (such as Covid-19 lateral flow tests) offer rapid (15-30 minutes) and portable analysis; however, they have a much lower level of sensitivity that may not be sufficient for some applications. The aim of this project is to develop a device that is sufficiently rapid and accurate enough for health professionals to diagnose viral diseases and give patients the most appropriate treatment and/or isolate them as quickly as possible if appropriate. In this proposal, fluorescent probes composed of semiconductor quantum dot (QD) nanocrystals with molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) will be developed to detect viral samples in saliva. We aim to achieve this goal by exploiting the QDs' unique properties: monodispersity in solution, high surface area-to-volume ratio, stable fluorescence for binding measurements, high fluorescence quantum yield (90-100%), and size and shape-dependent properties. We will synthesize non-toxic QDs that are free from cadmium, and modify their surface to make them water-soluble, compact and stable. We will link them to MIPs that bind specifically to the viral particles. MIPs are often referred to as "plastic" antibodies and can bind strongly and stably to their targets. Once the viral particles come into contact with the QDs-MIPs, they will bind to the MIP, which will result in the QDs translating the binding interaction by generating a unique fluorescence signal for the detected virus. These QDs will be ideal for platforms such as paper strips and lateral flow devices. Our aim is to use them in a prototype microfluidic paper analytic device. This will involve creating microfluidic channels on the paper device and binding the QDs-MIP probes onto the paper surface to allow the virus to be detected fluorescently via the naked eye. The versatility and agility of the proposed concept will ensure that the sensor can be modified quickly to address any potential future mutations or new outbreaks caused by other infectious pathogens.