Professor David Mullins, Acting Head of WMG, was delighted to welcome Mr Li Dong, Executive Vice President of China Energy to WMG.

Mr Li Dong was accompanied by a senior delegation from China Energy and subsidiary companies China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd - the largest coal company in the world, and Pujing Chemical Industry.

WMG’s Nanocomposites research team is currently working with colleagues at China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd and Pujing Chemical Industry on the development of sustainable and environmentally friendly fully biodegradable plastics.

Dr Chaoying Wan and Professor Tony McNally updated the guests on the project, and the delegation toured other key WMG research facilities in Composites, Additive Layer Manufacturing (ALM), Metrology and Battery Technology.

Professor Tony McNally said: “At a time when the sustainability of single use plastics has become a global issue, the WMG partnership with China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd and Pujing Chemical Industry is internationally leading. Our goal is to develop fully biodegradable plastics that decompose to benign components, such as water and, that can replace many of the single use plastics used in packaging.”

We are proud to announce that Professor Tony McNally has been selected by China’s Ministry of Education and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs under Plan 111 as a Foreign Expert to advise in the manufacture and characterisation of functional composite materials.

China’s Plan 111 is jointly organised by the Ministry of Education and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, P.R. China. It aims to gather groups of first-class minds from around the world to work with leading Chinese researchers on the creation of 100 dedicated innovation centres.

Over the next 5 years Professor McNally will be working in collaboration with the International Innovation Centre for Advanced Manufacturing proposed by the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology (BUCT).

Professor Tony McNally, who heads up Nanocomposites research at WMG has been announced as the first Editor-in-Chief of the newly formed journal, Functional Composite Materials.

The Associate Editors and the Editorial Board, led by Professor McNally, include the leading academics in the field from around the world. The journal will consider contributions on all types of composite materials where composite functionality can be clearly demonstrated.

Functional Composite Materials is published by SpringerNature. The publisher producers a number of key research journals and books globally on science, technology, medicine, humanities and social sciences.

Patients at risk of heart attacks and strokes may be spotted earlier thanks to a diagnosis tool that uses near-infrared light to identify high-risk arterial plaques, according to research carried out at WMG, University of Warwick, the Baker Institute and Monash University.

The scientists observed that when they increased the wavelength of the light currently used to visualise the fatty build-up found in arteries (atherosclerotic plaques) they could selectively identify the rupture-prone deposits, which commonly lead to blood clots, heart attacks and strokes.

Inspired by the materials that helped astronauts survive Apollo 11’s mission to the moon, Professor Tony McNally has focused his career on developing new composites based on nano materials. WMG’s Professor McNally, who is based at the International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing (IINM), was recently interviewed for Reinforced Plastics (www.reinforcedplastics.com), below is a snapshot of his thoughts on the challenges facing his research field.

While my research is rooted in fundamental engineering science, the target is functional composite materials that can be readily manufactured into products in high volumes.

Professor Tony McNally, Dr Chaoying Wan, and Dr Lukasz Figiel will be representing WMG at the 2^nd Sino_UK Bilateral Symposium on Polymer Nanocomposites with a series of lectures from 27-30 October.

The conference will take place at Donghua University in Shanghai, China, and will bring together experts from around the world.

Professor McNally will act as a Co-Chair for the four day event alongside representatives from Shanghai Jiaotong University and Donghua University. Professor McNally will also be delivering his own seminar on 28 October entitled ‘Electrical and Rheological Percolation of Composites of Polymers and MWCNTs’.

Also on 28 October, Dr Chaoying Wan will deliver ‘Dispersion and Interphase of Polymer Nanocomposites’ and Dr Lukasz Figiel ‘Prediction of Overall Behaviour of Polymer Nanocomposites Via Multi-Scale Modelling’.

International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing (IINM) at WMG

Nanocomposites research within IINM encompasses both fundamental and applied research, associated with the manufacture of novel materials, devices and components with tailored functionality and properties. For more information visit warwick ac.uk/wmgresearch/nano

WMG at the University of Warwick has established a new National Plastics Processing Centre (NPPC) which will provide a national hub for innovation and research in plastics processing.

The new NPPC brings a fully integrated approach to plastics design, manufacturing and disposal, encompassing multifunctional design and low environmental impact.

WMG has an extensive range of plastic design, manufacture and research technologies across its facilities which will now work together in the new Centre. It will have its own bespoke building by 2017 with facilities for training, research and development, and will also house a fully equipped elastomer technology laboratory.

WMG has an established track record of innovation and technology transfer in plastics processing. It has developed extensive capabilities and facilities across a wide range of processes and working with both large global companies and SMEs across a variety of sectors to develop and embed plastics processing. The capability offered from WMG is that most widely used within the plastics industry's processes including extrusion/compounding, injection moulding, thermoforming, blow moulding and rotational moulding.

The 2nd annual WMG Doctoral Research and Innovation Conference, entitled ‘Innovation through Collaboration’, is an excellent opportunity to showcase research from both academia and industry across themes in design, materials, manufacturing, systems and business transformation.

Organised by doctoral students, the conference will be held in the International Digital Laboratory on 30th June - 1st July, with an evening social event on the 30th.

Papers and poster presentations will take place across a wide variety of topics and awards will be presented in each theme.

Abstracts should be submitted online by 31st March.

WMG's Professor Tony McNally, Director of the International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing will be delivering a plenary lecture at the 6th International Conference on Advancements in Polymeric Materials (APM2015), which is taking place at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India from 20-22 February 2015.

Professor McNally will be speaking on 'Primary and Secondary Processing of Polymer Nanocomposites'.

APM2015 will be themed around marching towards smart product design & development with multi-funtional materials. It will be an International Forum for those who wish to present their projects and innovations, with the opportunity to discuss the main aspects and the latest results in the field of polymer science and product development.The general aim of the conference is to promote international collaboration in Education and Research in polymer science and product development.

For more information, visit the APM2015 conference site >>

Ilke Uysal Unalan a visiting PhD student, who spent the last year working on under the supervision of Dr Chaoying Wan in the International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing (IINM) in WMG has won the Best Poster Award at the 8th ECNP International Conference on Nanostructured Polymers and Nanocomposites held in Dresden, Germany recently.

The work, a collaboration with Dr Stefano Farris of the University of Milan, Italy describes the research ongoing in to the use of graphene in biopolymer nanocomposites for packaging and coating applications.