Author: chemistadmin

2nd International Meeting on Wetting and Carbon Neutralization (IMWCN 2025)
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The event aims to allow participants to find new solutions to tackle the global Net Zero challenges using the knowledge of wetting, new technologies in functional surfaces/coatings, and advanced materials. It promotes discussions on topics such as wetting (both in experimental and theoretical research), bio-inspired functional materials, energy conversion and conservation, and carbon neutralization technologies.

Selected Speakers

Glen McHale
The University of Edinburgh, UK

Ivan Parkin
University College London (UCL), UK

Lei Jiang
Chinese Academy of Sciences

Robin Ras
Aalto University, Finland

Shutao Wang
Chinese Academy of Sciences

Zuankai Wang
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

Event Details
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December 9, 2024
How tyres are turning green | Feature

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Tyres hide a feat of engineering beneath their nondescript black outer layer. Around 200 different raw materials come together to ensure car tyre performance, durability and safety. During recent years, the tyre industry has steered significant research and development efforts towards increasing the sustainability of these materials. Currently around 20% of materials in a typical car tyre are renewable or recycled with many of the rest derived from petroleum. Many manufacturers have pledged that their car tyres will contain 100% renewable or recycled materials by 2050.

One of the reasons for the slow paced transition is the complexity of tyre design. Each material in a tyre has a specific job within the broader matrix, explains Adam McCarthy, secretary general of the European Tyre and Rubber Manufacturers’ Association (ETRMA) in Brussels, Belgium. ‘It takes time to identify potential substitutes,’ he says, adding that the strong focus on safety also tends to put the brakes on progress. ‘The first and the last priority is always going to be safety.’

Compositions vary between manufacturers, tyre types, and price points, but most tyres share the same layered construction. There is the predominantly-rubber tread – the outer edge that makes contact with the road – and outer side wall. Beneath the tread is a supporting belt, often made up of steel cords. A skeleton layer, comprised of textile fibres, sits under the belt and the side walls. Then, there is a steel loop around the inner lip of the tyre where it meets the wheel.

Alternatives to nature

Rubber is the most abundant material in tyres. A car tyre is typically 20–30% natural rubber and a roughly an equivalent amount of synthetic rubber. The primary source of natural rubber is the sap of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) that grows in tropical regions. Despite being a natural polymer, rubber production has caused considerable environmental damage due to the deforestation of tropical rainforests to meet increased rubber demand.

In 2015, Michelin became the first in the tyre industry to commit to not using rubber from deforested areas. Today, more than 75 tyre and car manufacturers, including Bridgestone and Continental, and other interested stakeholders are working together to reduce the environmental impact of rubber plantations through the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber. This group educates farmers on more sustainable and higher-yielding production techniques, says Cyrille Roget, Michelin’s scientific and innovations communications director based in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Deforestation-free natural rubber ‘is a renewable material and sustainable’, he explains.

Over the past decade or so, some tyre manufacturers have explored the viability of two alternative natural rubber sources: the guayule shrub (Parthenium argentatum), that stores most its rubber in its bark, and Russian dandelion (Taraxacum kok-saghyz), that stores rubber in its roots. Both plants were researched during world war two, after Japanese forces seized Asian rubber plantations. Once rubber supplies from rubber trees became freely available again, interest in alternative sources of rubber dwindled for nearly 60 years.

A dedicated research center was opened by Bridgestone in the US state of Arizona in 2012 to restart the exploration of guayule’s potential. The aim is to ‘diversify the supply chain to make it more resilient’, explains Bill Niaura, executive director of sustainable innovation and circular economy at Bridgestone Americas, based in Ohio. ‘Hevea is grown in a concentrated part of the world using a single species of plant,’ he says, which puts global rubber supply at risk from disease, climate change and political instability.

Three years after opening the research centre, Bridgestone produced a guayule rubber demonstration tyre. Since 2022, a racing tyre with guayule rubber side walls has been used at IndyCar races. Today, research is ongoing as to how to scale production up. Bridgestone has a demonstration scale biorefinery at the Arizona site that processes guayule grown at on nearby farm. Ongoing research efforts include using genomic tools to grow more rubber in the crop, developing less destructive harvesting methods, and finding commercial uses for resin byproducts from the biorefinery.

Continental was the first to re-evaluate the viability of the Russian dandelion for industrial scale natural rubber production – in 2011. The long-term goal is ‘to grow a certain share of the rubber we consume next to our production facilities’, explains Pete Robb, marketing director at Continental in London, UK. Continental made its first demonstration tyre containing dandelion rubber in 2014 and opened a dedicated dandelion rubber research facility in Anklam, Germany in late 2018. Here, researchers are working on boosting rubber yields using conventional breeding methods and novel field machinery able to harvest dandelion roots without damaging them. ‘The aim is to harvest one metric ton of rubber per hectare of cultivated dandelions, which roughly corresponds to the yield from one hectare of traditional rubber trees,’ Robb says.

Synthetic solutions

More sustainable synthetic rubbers are another current focus. Made by polymerising isoprene, a by-product of petroleum cracking, synthetic rubbers have been used in blends with natural rubber in car tyres since the 1930s. The two types of rubbers have different properties. Natural rubber is 100% cis-1,4-polyisoprene in the form of crosslinked random coils. ‘The stereoregularity of that molecule is really important,’ Niaura explains. When under stress, the polymer coils elongate and align causing crystallites to form – these crystallites act to strengthen the rubber. No synthetic rubber is able to do this. ‘Nature is sometimes a better chemist than we are,’ Niaura says, ‘we can get to the very high 90% cis level, but it’s not enough to replicate what natural rubber does.’ The use of synthetic rubbers not only reduces reliance on natural rubber supplies, it also allows for tyre performance to be fine tuned. ‘You can do cool things with polymer functionalisation to maximise multiple performance attributes,’ says Niaura.

Today’s synthetic car tyre rubbers are from the styrene–butadiene rubber family, with nearly all the styrene and butadiene monomers coming from oil. Michelin is working to scale up the production of renewable butadiene made from ethanol from plant biomass. ‘We opened last year our first industrial prototype in France, in our plant in Bassens, that is producing renewable butadiene in coming from a biosource,’ says Roget. The source is wood chips, a waste product from the agricultural industry. Sugar extracted from the wood is turned to bioethanol and then biobutadiene.

In an attempt at closed loped recycling, Bridgestone is working with Lanzatech to develop microbe technology to produce butadiene from end-of-use tyres. The tyres are gasified to produce syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which then undergoes microbial fermentation. ‘The microbes metabolise that syngas into ethanol, and then that ethanol can be converted into butadiene as a monomer for synthetic rubber production,’ says Niaura. ‘Lanzatech’s biocatalyst is very selective to ethanol production, as opposed to something like a Fischer–Tropsch process.’

Recycled styrene is also being explored. Michelin, together with Montreal, Canada-based start-up Pyrowave, is scaling up microwave technology to break down waste polystyrene packaging into pure styrene monomers. Recycling dirty polystyrene from the food industry ‘that is not easily recycled today’ is of particular interest, says Roget. In 2023, Michelin announced that it had produced its first batch of styrene–butadiene synthetic rubber from biobutadiene and recycled styrene.

Carbon green

Rubber blends in car tyres also contain a number of other materials and chemicals to achieve the desired performance and durability. Carbon black (or soot) is the largest non-rubber component of car tyres. Today’s consumer tyres contain 20–30% carbon black, produced by partial combustion of petroleum. There are a number of subtypes of carbon black. ‘A modern passenger car tyre could have five to seven different types of carbon blacks all deployed differently,’ says Niaura. ‘The carbon black in the tread is different than the carbon black in the body fibres, which is different than the carbon black in the sidewall, which is different from the carbon black in the inner liner.’

The use of soybean oil and algae oil as alternative carbon black sources may be explored in the future. However, the focus is currently on reclaiming more carbon black from end-of-life tyres. Today, only less than 1% of carbon black in tyres is reclaimed – by a thermal decomposition process known as pyrolysis. ‘We cannot replace 100% of the virgin carbon black with recovered carbon black because it’s not pure. It’s a mix [of] the different carbon black that tyres [have] at the beginning,’ says Roget. In 2023, Bridgestone and Michelin published a white paper stating that new technology to reclaim more carbon black from tyres is vital to achieving the aim of 100% renewable or recycled tyres by 2050. The whitepaper proposed a global standard to help increase the use of recovered carbon black in tyres.

The two approaches being developed for improving carbon black recovery is the upcycling of the carbon black coming from pyrolysis and the creation of virgin grade carbon black from end-of-life tyres. The latter involves processing of pyrolysis oil, another product of tyre pyrolysis. Returning pyrolysis oil to a petroleum refinery for cracking, under the right conditions, will produce virgin grade carbon black, says Roget. Michelin is looking at this idea in partnership with Scandinavian Enviro Systems. The world’s first tyre recycling plant is currently being built in Uddevalla, Sweden, and is expected to open in 2025.

Continental is also looking to improve the tyre pyrolysis process to obtain more useful tyre starting materials. In 2022, it signed a partnership with start-up Pyrum Innovations for this purpose. ‘Both companies are working towards obtaining high-quality carbon black and high-quality raw materials from the pyrolysis oil obtained for Continental’s tyre production in the medium term,’ says Robb.

Sustainable support

More sustainable supporting materials in car tyres are another area of interest. Steel is the most used of these material types. Recycled steel is available, made in electric arc furnaces from scrap metal, but today it is sold as a mixture with virgin steel. Access to 100% recycled steel is outside the control of the tyre industry. ‘It’s an extended supply chain and we’re a minor minority player in the steel industry,’ says Niaura. For this material, tyre manufacturers have to sit back and wait for the steel industry to change its ways.

There will be more regulatory push to sustainability, which will drive the market in that direction

A structural material that tyre manufacturers can control the sustainability of is the PET used in tyre skeleton layers. In 2023, Continental launched its UltraContact NXT tyre containing PET mechanically recycled from waste PET single-use bottles. The recycling process is called ContiRe.Tex technology, and was developed in collaboration with Otiz, a Chinese fibre specialist and textile manufacturer. Nine to 15 recycled PET bottles are used per tyre. Meanwhile, Michelin is currently collaborating with French start-up Carbios to use enzymatically recycled PET from waste single-use bottles. ‘The principle is very simple,’ says Roget. Plastic bottle chips are placed in a warm water tank with enzymes that break down the plastic to form ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid. Plastic of any colour can be used. After purification, the monomers are reconstituted into virgin PET, something which has already been successfully used in demonstration tyres. Carbios opened it demonstration plant at Michelin’s Clermont-Ferrand facility in 2021. The company is currently building its first large biorecycling plant at Longlaville, which once fully operational will process 50,000 tons of PET waste each year.

Using combinations of these approaches, some tyre manufacturers have now produced proof-of-concept tyres with around 70% renewable and recycled materials. Some of these tyres have even started to enter niche tyre markets as premium products, such as those for high end cars. The higher production cost of these tyres currently limits them from becoming standard consumer tyres. Sustainable car tyre production ‘is clearly more expensive than pumping more dead dinosaurs’, says Niaura, referring to the low cost of fossil petroleum. For most people, ‘the most important part of the purchasing decision for a tyre is the price’, says ETRMA’s McCarthy. ‘We’re missing the pull from the consumer to demand more of those sustainable tyres.’

Driving up market share will likely therefore depend on improved regulation. The EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, which entered into force in July 2024, should help steer things in the right direction. ‘We expect tyres to be amongst the first group of products which will be looked at [using this regulation] to start to set eco design and sustainability requirements,’ McCarthy says. ‘This means that there will be more regulatory push to sustainability, which will obviously drive the market in that direction.’ Regulations to facilitate the recycling of end-of-use tyres through pyrolysis also need work, he adds.

The path to 100% sustainable consumer tyres is becoming clearer, but for tyres to truly turn green more than just the materials they contain need to change. ‘Materials are very important to reduce the footprint of our tyres, but [they only account for] 10 to 15% of the impact of the tyre during the entire life cycle,’ says Roget. ‘The usage part, when the tyre is on the vehicle, is where 80% of the impact happens.’ The tyre industry is also working on making tyres that emit fewer particles when on the road and are more fuel efficient, so they require less energy to keep them in motion.

Nina Notman is a science writer based in Salisbury, UK, and would like to thank the Tire Industry Project for their help with this article

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December 9, 2024
Pioneering the next frontier in particle physics

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory is set to revolutionise our understanding of atomic nuclei and their binding forces.

This transformation will be spearheaded by the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a groundbreaking particle accelerator designed in partnership with DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.

By integrating cutting-edge technologies, the EIC promises to unravel mysteries of the subatomic world while advancing the field of accelerator physics.

A new era at Brookhaven: From RHIC to EIC

The EIC builds on the legacy of Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which has been a cornerstone of particle physics research for over two decades.

The transition to the Electron-Ion Collider involves repurposing one of RHIC’s ion accelerator rings and integrating new components, including an electron accelerator ring, a storage ring, and advanced instrumentation.

This hybrid design not only maximises the reuse of existing infrastructure but also paves the way for an unprecedented level of precision and innovation.

Even as RHIC’s operational phase winds down, it plays a pivotal role as a testbed for solving engineering and physics challenges integral to the EIC. The Accelerator Physics Experiment (APEX) program at RHIC has already provided critical insights that have influenced the EIC’s design.

Boosting collision rates

A fundamental goal of the Electron-Ion Collider is achieving high luminosity, a measure of how frequently particle collisions occur. These collisions generate the data necessary for groundbreaking discoveries about the building blocks of matter.

In RHIC, ion beams are shaped to maximise collision rates at specific interaction points. For the EIC, physicists are refining this concept further by flattening proton and ion beams into ribbon-like shapes.

This innovative approach increases the probability of interaction with the oncoming electron beam, thus enhancing the collider’s overall performance.

Keeping particle beams cool and compact

Maintaining ‘cool’ beams is essential for achieving high luminosity. When particles heat up, their motion becomes erratic, causing the beam to expand and reducing collision rates. To counteract this, Brookhaven scientists employ an electron cooling technique.

By introducing relatively cool electron beams to travel alongside the ion beams, they extract heat and counteract the natural repulsion between positively charged ions.

For the Electron-Ion Collider, this cooling process will be extended and optimised. Scientists plan to use a longer cooling section, higher electron intensities, and innovative configurations to keep the ion beams tightly packed and highly efficient.

Synchronising and stabilising particle trajectories

One of the EIC’s unique challenges is synchronising beams of electrons and protons, which travel at different speeds depending on their energy levels.

To ensure collisions occur precisely at the interaction point, Brookhaven researchers have developed advanced magnet systems that dynamically adjust the proton beam’s trajectory. These systems were rigorously tested during RHIC’s APEX studies, paving the way for seamless integration into the EIC.

Stability is another critical factor. As ion beams complete tens of thousands of turns per second within the Electron-Ion Collider, interactions with the accelerator’s environment can lead to instabilities.

To address this, Brookhaven scientists have tested damping systems and coatings, such as amorphous carbon, that mitigate unwanted electron clouds and heat buildup.

Overcoming magnetic interference

The EIC’s complex design includes three distinct accelerator rings: one for ions, one for colliding electrons, and another for accelerating electrons to collision energy.

However, magnetic interference among these rings posed a potential obstacle. Through APEX experiments, researchers discovered that pre-accelerating electrons to higher energy before injection into the EIC mitigates this interference.

This finding has been incorporated into the collider’s design, ensuring smooth operation at all energy levels.

Unlocking neutron secrets

While the Electron-Ion Collider is primarily designed to probe protons, researchers are also keen to explore the structure of neutrons, a key component of atomic nuclei.

Because neutrons lack an electric charge and cannot be accelerated directly, the EIC will instead use simple nuclei like helium-3 to study neutron properties.

Recent experiments at RHIC tested methods to measure the polarisation of helium-3 nuclei, a critical step for understanding neutron spin. These studies have refined the tools and techniques that will be deployed at the Electron-Ion Collider.

Harnessing artificial intelligence for EIC optimisation

Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly significant role in advancing accelerator physics. At RHIC, researchers used machine learning to optimise beam parameters and disentangle particle motion, laying the groundwork for AI-driven performance enhancements at the Electron-Ion Collider. These techniques promise to streamline operations and maximise the collider’s scientific output.

EIC: Building the future of science

As Brookhaven National Laboratory transitions from RHIC to the Electron-Ion Collider, it stands at the forefront of scientific innovation.

The EIC will not only advance our understanding of the atomic nucleus but also inspire new generations of scientists and engineers to push the boundaries of technology and knowledge.

With construction underway and groundbreaking experiments on the horizon, the EIC promises to unlock a new era of discovery.

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December 9, 2024
Taking on the Tyranny of the Tech Bros

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The glow of the tech bros’ halo is dimming and, in 2025, the computing industry’s sheen of glamor will continue to fade, too. While other STEM fields are making strides in broadening participation in their workforces, year after year, computing, a supposedly innovative field, fails to recruit, retain, and respect women and nonbinary workers. For example, precision questioning, abstraction, aggression, sexism and a disdain for altruism—serving the social good—are a few of the core values driving culture in computing worksites. These values and the ways they are policed via bias, discrimination, and harassment in high-tech companies form the “Bro Code.”

The Bro Code perpetuates high tolerance of sexual harassment. It also contributes to the field’s failure to rectify its stark segregation. Only 21 percent of computer programming positions are held by women. Of that 21 percent, only 2 percent are African American, and only 1 percent are Latina. While sorely underrepresented in the field overall, women are disproportionately affected during industry’s downsizing. For example, nearly 70 percent of those laid off in the 2022 tech layoffs were women. This tracks with my experience in Big Tech. As soon as the company went public, stockholders demanded annual layoffs. For the first two years, the only people terminated in my department were women.

Further, due to their massive wealth and masterful branding, Bro Code bosses believe themselves to be wizards or priests. They lean into authoritarianism, prompted to repress complaints and resistance. Some programmers imitate this behavior. For example, in 2023, tech bros mobbed the Grace Hopper Celebration, the world’s largest conference for women and nonbinary tech workers. Women attendees I spoke with described men at the career expo simply barging in front of them in lines, and some said they were verbally harassed and assaulted.

In 2025, the march towards a future dictated by algorithmic lords will falter. Coalitions between feminist movements and labor activism will increase public scrutiny of tech culture. These efforts will start to crack the Bro Code. Bro Code bosses talk a big game about its socially revolutionary impact, but participants in my research felt thwarted when trying to use their technical skills to serve others. For instance, Lynn reported that the eye-tracking device she developed to help people with disabilities was repurposed for marketing analysis; Shauna’s lab mates nicknamed her “accessibility bitch” when she worked on projects to help those disenfranchised in computing.

As Big Tech continues to deliver empty promises instead of solutions to social ills—while dodging taxes, quashing regulations and fueling a yawning pay inequality gap—the public will continue to grow disenchanted with the industry. In 2025, thwarted altruistic efforts like Shauna and Lynn’s will accelerate growing skepticism about computing’s service to humanity.

Disenfranchised tech workers will continue to help us hold Bro Code bosses accountable for not only failing to live up to its widely publicized altruism, but also for their efforts to conceal the social harms of their products. As recent organizing activities by tech workers show, strong coalitions across workers are what scare these reigning elites the most. For example, in 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees across the globe staged a walkout against sexual harassment and systemic racism in the company. In 2025, activism against the militarization, racism, sexism and economic exploitation in the tech industry will skyrocket higher than Bro Code bosses’ space jets.

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December 9, 2024
Applying the SSbD framework to the ZeroF project
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In today’s rapidly evolving world, sustainability and safety are critical when designing materials, products, and manufacturing processes.

The Safe and Sustainable By Design framework offers a voluntary approach to steer the innovation of chemicals and materials.

It is a key component of the ZeroF Project, which focuses on developing PFAS-free coatings for food packaging and upholstery textiles.

This article explores how the SSbD framework drives innovation within the project and influences its results.

What is the SSbD framework?

The SSbD framework is a strategic approach that guides the research and development of safer and more sustainable materials and chemicals. It provides a comprehensive methodology that prioritises the reduction of environmental and health risks from the earliest stages of material design, throughout production and the entire product life cycle.

The framework’s approach consists of two phases: a (re)-design phase, where eight guiding principles help in designing chemicals and materials, and a safety and sustainability assessment phase.

The first phase is the (re)-design phase, where eight guiding principles are applied to help design chemicals and materials in a way that enhances sustainability and safety. This phase focuses on improving material efficiency, reducing the use of hazardous chemicals, optimising energy consumption, and prioritising renewable resources. It also emphasizes preventing hazardous emissions, reducing exposure to harmful substances, ensuring safety at the end of a product’s life, and considering the entire life cycle, from raw material sourcing to disposal. By following these principles, the goal is to create products and processes that are safer for both people and the environment.

The second phase is the safety and sustainability assessment phase, which evaluates the chemical safety and environmental impact of the designed materials and processes. This step involves assessing the toxicological and ecotoxicological effects, as well as evaluating environmental, social, and economic sustainability in a step-by-step, hierarchical manner. This assessment ensures that the designed products are not only effective and efficient but also safe for human health and the environment.

How the SSbD framework started

The SSbD framework was developed to support the EU’s broader sustainability and chemical safety objectives. Launched as part of the European Green Deal, it aims to accelerate the transition to a safer, circular, and climate-neutral economy by fostering innovation in chemical and material design.

The framework was officially launched by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in December 2022, following broad consultation with stakeholders, including industry, research organisations and policymakers.

The SSbD framework is orientated towards continuous improvement, with a focus on iterative assessments to steer innovation towards the green industrial transition, foster substitution or minimisation of the production and use of substances of concern, and minimise the impact on human health, climate and the environment. The focus is on cross-sector and cross-research collaboration, as demonstrated by projects such as ZeroF, which is participating in the framework’s test phase.

Applying the framework in the ZeroF project

The ZeroF project focuses on the development of PFAS-free coatings that are safer, more sustainable, and cost-effective. These coatings are designed for use in food packaging and upholstery textiles, addressing the environmental and health risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

By applying the SSbD framework, ZeroF is ensuring that its coatings meet the highest standards of safety and sustainability from the earliest stages of development.

Key applications of SSbD in ZeroF
1. Hazard and risk assessment: ZeroF conducts thorough hazard assessments of PFAS alternatives, ensuring that replacements are safer and less toxic than PFAS. The project has synthesised 28 carbohydrate fatty acid esters (CFAEs) for food packaging and 6 ORMOCER® materials for textiles. Both are considered safer alternatives, with lower toxicity and environmental impact potentials compared to PFAS. However, challenges exist in the early innovation phase due to limited data on these new materials. To address this, ZeroF is building comprehensive substances inventories that include precursors, catalysts, solvents, surfactants, additives, and emissions, facilitating the assessment of these materials’ safety and environmental impact.
2. Human health and safety: ZeroF prioritises safety throughout the lifecycle of the coatings, from the chemical synthesis phase to application and disposal. The project integrates toxicological models and experimental testing to ensure that the new materials do not pose risks to human health at any stage of their use. This also includes a rigorous process to screen alternative materials for compliance with safety regulations, such as the Food Contact Material Regulation (1935/2004) and certification schemes like OEKO-TEX Standard 1000 for textiles.
3. Environmental Sustainability: The environmental impact of the new coatings is evaluated using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. ZeroF aims to reduce the carbon footprint and overall environmental impact of the coatings by using renewable feedstocks and minimising hazardous emissions during production. The project also ensures that these alternatives are compliant with the EU’s Green Deal objectives, contributing to the circular economy and climate neutrality.
4. Social and economic sustainability: ZeroF’s coatings are designed to be affordable, with cost increases kept within 20% of current alternatives. Additionally, the project assesses the social acceptability and economic feasibility of these coatings, ensuring they can be adopted at scale while contributing to the circular economy.
5. Iterative innovation: The SSbD framework emphasises the ongoing refinement of materials and processes throughout the project lifecycle. ZeroF integrates feedback at each stage, from initial design to regulatory approval, ensuring that the final products meet both safety and performance standards. Acknowledging the challenges encountered during the early stages of innovation, such as gaps in data and the limited applicability of existing tools, the project addresses these issues by generating new toxicology data and using complex modelling to bridge knowledge gaps. This approach actively prevents ‘regrettable substitution’ and fosters more well-informed decision-making throughout the process.
Why the framework is crucial for ZeroF

The SSbD framework is a key element of the ZeroF project, offering a structured approach to developing coatings that meet both safety and sustainability goals.

By following the framework’s principles, ZeroF ensures its coatings are free from harmful substances like PFAS while also delivering long-term benefits for human health and the environment. In applying the SSbD framework, ZeroF aims to set a new standard in material innovation that supports the EU’s Green Deal objectives and the global movement toward safer, more sustainable products.

By considering the entire lifecycle of its coatings and continuously evaluating their safety and sustainability, the ZeroF project contributes to the development of materials that are safer for both people and the planet.

Reaching the EU’s broader goals

Integrating the Safe and Sustainable by Design framework into the ZeroF project emphasises the crucial role of safety and sustainability in material innovation in both material science and product design.

In this effort, ZeroF is closely collaborating with the IRISS CSA to advance the SSbD approach alongside other similar Horizon Europe projects. IRISS, a global initiative, accelerates the transition to Safe and Sustainable by Design materials, products, and processes.

Its goal is to transform the SSbD community in Europe and beyond, promoting a lifecycle approach that integrates safety, climate neutrality, circularity, and functionality from the design and manufacturing stages.

By following the framework’s guidelines, ZeroF not only develops safer and more sustainable coatings but also contributes to the EU’s broader goals of pollution reduction, climate neutrality and circular economy.

Through continuous iteration and adherence to the SSbD principles, ZeroF is creating a blueprint for the future of safer and more sustainable product design, setting an example for others in the field.
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December 9, 2024
Photocatalytic Alkanes Functionalization Promoted by CeCl3

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Photoredox catalysis can be useful for the development of new sustainable organic transformations. Hydrocarbons are abundant, but often not well-suited for use as chemical feedstocks due to their low reactivity. Thus, the development of easy-to-use C-H activation protocols under mild conditions for the functionalization of hydrocarbons is an interesting research target. Photocatalysis can help to tackle this problem.

Christoforos G. Kokotos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, and colleagues have developed a light-promoted protocol for the C–H alkenylation and alkynylation of alkanes (general reactions pictured). The team used a CeCl₃-based catalytic system together with n-tetrabutylammonium chlorine (TBACl) as a chlorine source to react a range of alkanes with either Z-1,2-bis(phenylsulphonyl)ethylene or [(methylsulfonyl)ethynyl]benzene. The reactions were performed under 390 nm LED irradiation in acetonitrile as the solvent at room temperature.

According to the researchers, the combination of an inexpensive cerium salt with the tetrabutylammonium chloride salt leads to the formation of a cerium(IV) complex, generating a chlorine radical upon irradiation. This chlorine radical reacts with the alkane and initiates a hydrogen atom transfer (HAT) process. The reaction tolerated a variety of linear and non-linear alkanes, as well as bulkier substrates and substrates with different functional groups. The desired alkenylation or alkynylation products were obtained in good to high yields.

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December 9, 2024
Arylation of Benzoxazoles with Bulky Aryl Chlorides

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Benzoxazoles are fused heterocycles that have applications, e.g., in materials science and and drug discovery. Benzoxazoles with a 2,6-disubstituted arene unit at the C2 position that features bulky substituents, which limit rotation, can be particularly interesting, e.g., for use in light-emitting and luminescent materials. Such substituted benzoxazole units can also be found in biologically active molecules.

Chi Wai Cheung, Pui Ying Choy, Fuk Yee Kwong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, China, and colleagues have developed a method for the palladium-catalyzed C2–H arylation of benzoxazoles using sterically hindered aryl chlorides (general product structure pictured). The team used a new indolylphosphine ligand for the transformation. The reacted different benzoxazole derivatives with 2-chloro-m-xylenes and other 1,3-substituted 2-chloroarenes in the presence of Pd(OAc)₂ and the phosphine ligand as the catalytic system and LiO^tBu as a base. The reactions were performed in tetrahydrofuran (THF) as a solvent at 110 °C.

Under these conditions, the desired products were obtained in good to high yields. Overall, the work allows the efficient synthesis of sterically congested 2,6-disubstituted 2-arylbenzoxazoles. According to the researchers, they will work on other applications of their newly developed ligand in direct C–H arylation processes with high steric hindrances.

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December 9, 2024
To Build Electric Cars, Jaguar Land Rover Had to Redesign the Factory

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Transforming a car manufacturing plant entering its seventh decade into a futureproof facility, ready for AI-powered autonomous driving, comes with natural challenges. Among them: 1960s architecture drawings—and the imperial system. “We had to survey everything and go out with the tape measure,” explains Dan Ford, site director at Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) site in Halewood, Merseyside, England. “But the drawing’s measurements were off: we struck a drainpipe.”

Besides that minor bump in the road (the Great British weather and an August downpour meant work was delayed by 48 hours), JLR’s £250 million ($323.4 million) upgrade of its Halewood plant has been smooth. Off the River Mersey, 10 miles from Liverpool, Halewood has long been synonymous with the British car industry—and JLR is the UK’s largest automotive employer. (The company’s controversial Jaguar Type 00 will be built at a different factory in Solihull). Opened in 1963 by Ford of Britain to build the Anglia (the small family saloon starred as the flying car in the Harry Potter series), plans to transform the plant began in late 2020. Ford’s team ditched the tape measure for a digital twin, scanning 1,000 sqm (10,764 sq ft) of footprint, floor to ceiling, every weekend.

An ABB robot in the new extension ensures door faces are clean of debris before they pass through laser alignment.

Photography: JLR

Halewood has now been modded for cars of the future. A fleet of 750 robots (“our version of the Terracotta Army,” says Ford), laser alignment technology, and cloud-based infrastructure join 3,500 JLR employees on the factory floor, expanded by 32,364 sqm (348,363 sq ft) to produce the manufacturer’s next-generation vehicles. New calibration rigs measure the responsiveness of a vehicle’s advanced driver-assistance systems, such as its cameras and sensors. Safety levels can be calibrated for future autonomous driving, says Ford.

The first stage in Halewood’s redevelopment was its new body shop, with two floors separated by 2.5 meters (eight feet) of concrete to account for heavy machinery, capable of producing 500 vehicle bodies per day. The new build line is now in the commissioning stage: pre-production electrified medium-sized SUVs are set to be tested through 2025. Forty new autonomous mobile robots now assist Halewood employees with fitting high-voltage batteries. Other additions include a £10 million ($12.9 million) automated painted body storage tower, stacking up to 600 vehicles, retrieved by cranes for just-in-time customer orders.

A handheld microscope is used for a paint surface inspection, a final audit assessing depth coverage and quality.

Photography: JLR

Halewood is JLR’s first all-electric facility. The UK government’s zero emission vehicle mandate, part of its plan to transition to a net-zero economy, became effective at the beginning of 2024—22 per cent of all new car sales must be zero emission. The law has forced the industry to effectively fast-track electric vehicle production, up to an effective ban on the sale of new petrol cars by 2035; the EU has similar regulations in place. Each of JLR’s luxury marques will have a pure electric model by 2030, with the Range Rover Electric set for pre-order (the company’s only available battery-electric vehicle, the Jaguar I-Pace, launched in 2018, is being discontinued).

A high payload robot with black pneumatic suction cups ready to pick up a vehicle hood; surrounding pneumatic clasps secure the panel in place.

Photography: JLR

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December 9, 2024
Publishers are selling papers to train AIs — and making millions of dollars

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Nature, Published online: 09 December 2024; doi:10.1038/d41586-024-04018-5

Generative-AI models require massive amounts of data — scholarly publishers are licensing their content to train them.

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December 9, 2024
This fearless science sleuth risked her career to expose publication fraud

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Early this year, Anna Abalkina found out that her name was on a watch list for Roskomnadzor, a Russian agency that tracks online and social-media activity. Abalkina, a Russian citizen now working in Berlin, tries not to worry about it. There shouldn’t be a risk if she were to return to Russia, she reasons. “But the problem is, you never know.” Her colleagues advise against it.

The reason that she has come under the watchful eye of the Russian state is that she has spent 13 years rooting out fraud in the scientific literature. Her work on plagiarism and on uncovering businesses that sell fake papers — called paper mills — has focused most heavily on Russia and ex-Soviet countries, and more recently on Iran and India.

Globally, she’s also tracked hijacked journals, which are scam websites that clone authentic journal titles to con authors out of publication fees. Abalkina showed that the hijackers launder their way into respectability by becoming indexed in research databases such as Scopus. Last December, Scopus’s owner Elsevier deleted all of its links to journal home pages to counteract the problem — acknowledging Abalkina’s work. But this June, she reported that several hijacked journals continue to infiltrate Scopus.

“Cases of journal hijacking can be complex and ever-changing,” a spokesperson for Elsevier said, adding that the publisher was continually adjusting its processes so that Scopus indexed only high-quality, trusted content.

Then, this November, Abalkina flagged an unusually bold effort to clone journal sites from major publishers. They say they’re looking into the scam.

Abalkina is one of a growing cohort of sleuths working to decontaminate the literature. But she’s unusual in studying activity in Russia, in being funded to do some of this work — at the Free University of Berlin’s Institute of East European Studies — and in her focus on how fraud systems operate.

“She has considerable skills in doing the sorts of analyses that allow her to explore networks of people,” says Dorothy Bishop, a neuropsychologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who collaborated with Abalkina to document a paper mill that got six illegitimate papers published in a psychology journal (which were subsequently retracted). “She is doing very important work,” Bishop adds.

Abalkina’s introduction to research misconduct came in the early 2010s, when she was at Moscow’s Financial University, working in international economics. She was shocked to find that a PhD student had plagiarized two of her papers, copying large parts of the works. When she complained, the journal issued only a correction, saying that the author forgot to reference her work. (The student later gave up their degree after Abalkina applied pressure to their university.)

Abalkina then got involved in Dissernet, a grass-roots network of academics and journalists that examined Russian PhD theses en masse for plagiarism in 2013. It got hundreds of degrees revoked and implicated many high-profile Russian politicians.

During that time, Abalkina left Russia to pursue an economics PhD in Italy on Russian banks. She thought that she had left behind the peculiar distortions of research she’d seen in the Russian system. But instead she encountered a barrage of international research fraud, including fake studies, bribed journal editors and paper mills. Now in Berlin, Abalkina is funded to study Russian governance, plagiarism and how paper mills and other bad actors in the research publishing world operate.

Abalkina estimates that her work has led to hundreds of retractions — in particular resulting from her 2021 investigation into how a company called International Publisher, headquartered in Russia, seems to sell authorship slots on papers.

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December 9, 2024