Material-design-and-engineering
1974
JM’s first ever emission control catalyst material was produced in Royston, UK
2021
our high performance components for hydrogen fuel cells are enabling the decarbonisation of transport
Material design and engineering involves the close collaboration of experimental scientists, modellers and process engineers. We combine these three elements to understand the fundamental properties of materials at the atomic level and investigate how to apply this to improve and enhance our products’ performance.
What is material design and engineering?
Material design and engineering makes use of the relationship between a materials’ molecular structure and its physical properties and chemical behaviour. By understanding this relationship, we can design new compositions and structural features that will change how the material reacts chemically and customise this for specific applications.
A collaborative approach
Close collaboration between our material scientists and modellers accelerates the tailoring of materials to our customers’ needs, as we can model how small changes to a material will affect product performance and verify this experimentally. Insight from our process engineers then means we can reliably scale up production, making products that consistently meet their functional targets.
Customisable and cost-effective catalysts
Material design is essential to our catalysis businesses. Porous materials make great catalyst supports as they have a large surface for the catalyst to coat to. We can tune the porosity to match the reaction we want to catalyse, for example tailoring the pore size to match the size of the molecules we want to react. With our expertise in the synthesis of mixed metal oxides and inorganics, we can also adjust the chemistry of the support to enhance the catalytic properties of the product. And within the catalyst itself, we can alter the ratio of different metals as metal prices fluctuate, to decrease the cost of the catalyst while ensuring the same performance. This is applicable to many of our products from emissions control and chemical processing catalysts to our catalyst-coated membranes for hydrogen fuel cells and green hydrogen electrolysers.
