Matt graduated from the University of Reading with an MChem Chemistry with a year in industry. During the year in industry, he was located at Ilika plc, where he conducted a project on the optimisation of solid state battery deposition using physical vapour deposition (PVD). After graduating, he went back to work at Ilika and was responsible for quality control of solid state battery materials. Following this, he worked at the global R&D hub for British American Tobacco. Prior to joining AAPS CDT, Matt was working at the Royce Hub, Henry Royce Institute at the University of Manchester as the chemical materials design (CMD) technician. He was also part of the lab sustainability team at the Royce Hub, with the lab achieving Gold LEAF (lab efficiency assessment framework) status in 2023. He is now undertaking a 3-year PhD under the supervision of Dr Fulvio Pinto on creating sustainable composite materials for use in vehicles.
Sustainability has been an important part of Matt's life for the past few years - this has involved many trips to the refill shop, browsing Vinted for clothes, and nagging others about ways they can be more conscious of their environmental impact. Their motivation for joining AAPS CDT is to utilise their background in chemistry to create a more sustainable future.
Outside of the lab, Matt's interests include urban planning, public transport, motorcycles, films and video games. He has also been into coffee since 2021 and owns a fancy manual grinder.
Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are quickly becoming one of the most favoured industry choices for sustainable transport options in our current society due to their zero tailpipe emissions. However, BEVs have a major issue with weight due to the large number of batteries required to provide a suitable driving range. Current BEVs have utilised traditional metal structures as casing for the battery packs and modules, adding additional weight leading to reduced travel range and also elevating the fire damage risk due to metal’s superior thermal conductivity.
Composite materials (materials made of two or more component materials) have excellent mechanical properties whilst remaining lightweight. They are highly customisable, which enables a variety of different manufacturing methods and starting materials to be used. However, traditional composite materials such as carbon fibre still require a lot of energy and resources to manufacture, making them less desirable from an environmental standpoint.
Bio-derived materials are a continually growing area, with natural fibre reinforced composites of particular interest. Natural fibres such as flax are capable of matching the performance of glass fibre at a lower density and a lower cost. Bio-derived materials can also be engineered to be biodegradable, whereas conventional composite materials are extremely hard to dispose of at end of life. Natural fibre materials uptake in automotive manufacturing in the past was mainly for non structural applications, but more structural applications have been seen in recent years. One such case of a high performance structural application has been seen in F1, with McLaren replacing their carbon fibre seats with a flax composite version said to reduce the CO2 emissions by 75%. There is great potential for natural fibre composite materials to replace traditional materials and reduce the environmental impact of automotive manufacturing.
This project will look into using natural fibres to design and develop novel sustainable composite materials for EV battery module casing using a holistic approach to take into consideration numerical, analytical and experimental approaches with the objective of minimising environmental impact whilst maximising performance.
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