Abstract
The Materials Processing Institute (MPI) is a not-for-profit research and technology organisation that is being formed as a result of a divestment from Tata Steel. The Institute includes all of the people and facilities that were formerly part of the Tata Steel research centre at Teesside Technology Centre in the UK. Tata Steel is gifting all of the assets at Teesside Technology Centre to MPI, which will then be completely independent of Tata Steel. As a result of this divestment MPI is now applying its expertise in technology commercialisation across a broader range of industry and its open access facilities are available for the benefit of companies across the globe.
Though MPI itself is a fairly new company, 2015 will mark the seventieth anniversary of continuous research and development through MPI and its predecessors. The forerunner to MPI was the British Iron and Steel Research Association (BISRA), founded in 1945 as a not-for-profit research organisation. Over the ensuing decades BISRA was first nationalised into the British Steel Corporation, privatised as British Steel Plc, merged into Corus Group Plc and then acquired by Tata Steel Ltd. Throughout all of this time, the centre at Teesside continued to be at the forefront of technology development for the Iron and Steel industry, commercialising technologies such as blast furnace coal injection, steel converter bath agitation and mould thermal monitoring for continuous casting. Now the cycle has completed a full circle with the creation of MPI as a not-for-profit, independent research organisation, continuing its work as a process development centre, for the steel and other industries and no longer tied to a single company (see Fig 1).
History of MPI
At the heart of MPI is the industrial development and technology commercialisation expertise, which takes bench top ideas and makes them successful in a production environment, supports the development of new grades of steel and designs improvements to steel processes. Tata Steel will remain as a significant customer to MPI, with a long term research agreement, but the Institute is also partnering with other companies in the industry and has received significant support in these early stages from Harsco Metals and the Centre for Process Innovation. MPI is now working with suppliers of equipment and materials to the steel industry, steel producing companies and users of steel, on technology and supply chain problems.
It is increasingly recognised that the UK is an excellent location in which to undertake academic and industrial research. Access to world leading universities, tax breaks such as the UK R&D tax credits and a well established intellectual property framework, that includes Patent Box, means that companies can rapidly develop solutions to technical problems and capture the benefits of either protection, or commercialisation and exploitation. However, the opportunity to access all available funds for technology support and the complex nature of many issues, often involving other parts of the supply chain, means that it is more effective to undertake research through an independent Institute where possible, rather than from with the company. The existing network of UK Catapult centres in manufacturing, offshore renewables and other areas demonstrate this in practice. Figure 2 illustrates its relationship to other UK Catapults. MPI has been set up to mirror the independent nature of these centres, but with such a long pedigree in this field it is uniquely entitled to be referred to as an Institute. It is for this reason that Tata Steel has decided to place these assets in an independent organisation thereby allow the Institute to flourish by serving the needs of other steel producers, suppliers and customers, from across the industry.
Objectives and links to UK catapults
In forming MPI the industrial research facilities have been augmented by the creation of a co-located doctoral training centre and a technology centre for small and medium sized companies (SMEs). The doctoral training centre is being led by the University of Durham, in association with Newcastle University and the University of Sheffield. It is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the UK body for funding science based research (see Fig. 3).
Organisation and partners
The remit of the doctoral centre is to train PhD students in the area of complex industrial process problems with a strong emphasis on quantitative business analysis. The aim is to produce high quality doctorates in materials engineering that are immediately industry-ready and can accelerate the performance of the businesses to which they are recruited. The advantage of a doctoral centre co-located at the MPI site is that fundamental industrial problems can be can be managed from inception to commercialisation, without encountering problems in knowledge transfer. Teams of researchers can work together across the various stages of development of a technology and ensure a smooth transition from bench to factory.
A significant partner in the formation of MPI is the local enterprise partnership Tees Valley Unlimited (TVU). The purpose of TVU is to stimulate growth in the Tees Valley area and MPI is working with TVU to create growth through the inception and development of SMEs. Much of the emphasis is on solving technology problems, but access to finance and business services are all important aspects of the needs of SMEs that MPI is seeking to address with its partner operations.
The final component of the MPI business is a strong link to professional standards and training through the Institution of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) and its affiliated organisation the Cleveland Institution of Engineers (CIE). The CIE is resident on the site of MPI and is this year celebrating its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
The role of MPI is to fill the technology development gap between university ideas and production plant, often called the ‘valley of death’. To do this requires a complex mix of research engineers and scientists, a range of state of the art scale up equipment and an intimate understanding of the unique opportunities and constraints of steel production. Having developed this expertise over many decades, MPI is now able to make this available to steel manufacturers, their suppliers and customers across the globe. The unique facilities at MPI include full scale continuous casting for the development of steel products, instrumentation and process design, state of the art laboratories in fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, materials characterisation and metallography (see Fig. 4). The expertise at the Institute also extends to performance of consumables, such as refractories, and plant and equipment itself. Until recently these facilities were only available to Tata Steel, or collaboration partners, but now they are openly available to any company that wishes to undertake work at MPI on a confidential or collaborative basis.
Technologies and facilities
MPI has long been strong in the areas of raw materials and process development, but increasingly attention is turning to the sustainability of steel production and use. As might be expected, this strand of activity covers the optimisation of energy in the materials cycle, the minimisation of CO2 emissions and the reduction of waste and raw material consumption. However, the ethical supply of materials is also increasingly of importance and this is an area where MPI is taking a lead and actively looking for new partners amongst ethically responsible steel producers. There is an opportunity for the steel industry to take a leading role in demonstrating the credibility of steel as an ethical and sustainable materials and MPI is working with the industry to give the scientific and technology support to realise this goal. MPI is currently undertaking a large study in this area funded by the UK Department for Business, looking specifically at energy consumption across large industrial sites and there is opportunity for more industrial companies to participate in this work. The core technology areas are shown in Fig. 5.
Core technology areas
In the coming years MPI has a strong plan for the growth and development of people and expertise for the steel industry in the UK, Europe and worldwide. MPI is addressing the concerns of the industry around energy, raw materials, CO2 and sustainable product development, by drawing together industry, industrial researchers, access to the best universities and small companies in the supply chain. MPI also has a strong impartial voice on matters of technology affecting the industry and is giving sound advice on behalf of its members to policy makers and opinion formers. Membership of the Institute is open to any company that wishes to undertake activity at MPI and can confer rights in the setting the strategy and direction of the Institute. Enquiries from prospective members are most welcome and the growth that is being experienced in the member companies of MPI is already bringing about the changes that were hoped for at the launch of the Institute.