EconoMISER
Mid-Term Report
January 2024

1Foundation Industry
Sustainability Consortium
What is FISC?

Benefit to Industry

The Foundation Industries
Sustainability Consortium (FISC) isa partnership between five global
leaders in innovation, research andtechnology from across the cement,
metal, glass, ceramics, paper andchemical industries. In December
2022, the five partners agreed todevelop ideas for collaborative
projects utilising existing
capabilities across the partner
locations, their technical teams andpartnerships within the foundationindustries.

FISC will establish a network ofscale-up centres to support thefoundation industries and delivercross centre working to address
innovation challenges arounddecarbonisation and sustainability.

EconoMISER is the first major
project of FISC, representing a£19.5m investment by UK Researchand Innovation.

Core to the offer, is the delivery of
the EconoMISER Programme andthe collaboration between centres
to develop shared solutions,enabling project partners andindustry to learn from best practice
to innovate across the foundationindustry sectors. The programme
will confirm innovation challenges
that can be taken forward in future
projects supported by private andpublic investment.

Delivery Strategy

FISC Partners

The FISC Vision
The FISC partners have a shared vision to strengthen the foundationindustries in the UK by working together toScale and Accelerate the innovation needed to drive the transformationof the foundation industries, to create
Sustainable, low carbon and resource efficient materials delivered to vital
Supply Chains, enabled by a
Skilled and Diverse Workforce with exciting jobs in vibrant industries that
support the UK economy.
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EconoMISER Lifecycle
Connect

Collaborate

Innovate

ImpactFellows are engaging withcompanies and RTOs to landscape
the national research andinnovation challenges faced by
the foundation industries and toidentify project partnerships for
EconoMISER.

EconoMISER Application
Scientists are working alongside
two or more members of FISC andexternal project partners to deliver
R&D solutions for the Foundation
Industries.

The EconoMISER team andproject partners will develop
identified solutions through thenetwork of scale-up centres
established by FISC and roll out
technology and manufacturingsolutions into the foundationindustries.

EconoMISER projects aresupporting the decarbonisationand sustainability needs of thefoundation industries throughimproved resource efficiency,
sustainable products and Industry
4.0 solutions.

This connection is establishingcross sector links throughout
technology and manufacturing
readiness levels to initiate projects
that will extend beyond thelifecycle of EconoMISER.

FISC is comprised of five researchfacilities who offer a wide range
test capability and expertiseto help identify solutions
to research and innovation
challenges faced by thefoundation industries.

EconoMISER is organised aroundfive research themes and will
use FISC facilities to scale-up
research through technology
and manufacturing readinesslevels.

Outcomes will add security to raw
materials supply chains, improve
cost competitiveness, accelerate
digitisation, and advance skills anddiversity within the workforce.

Stakeholders:

UKFoundation
Industries
Community

FoundationIndustries
Sustainability
Consortium

FISC
Partners

Foundation
Industries
Partners

FISC
Partners

Foundation
Industries
Partners

UK Foundation Industries
Community

Supported by:

TFI Fellows
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Application Scientists

EconoMISER Scale-Up Centres

FISC Partnership
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Innovation Themes

Theme Delivery Progress

EconoMISER projects are centred around six research themes. Eachresearch theme is led by a FISC partner who coordinates cross-centre
collaboration with other members of the consortium.
Alternative fuels
Supporting the adoption of green energy solutions, including lower
carbon and less polluting fuels such as hydrogen and biofuels.
Circular economy
Ensuring FI resources are used as effectively and efficiently as
possible to adopt a zero waste, recirculating system which will
improve security of supply and reduce environmental impact.
Digital Sensing
Developing process monitoring and data capture practices tosupport remote and real-time decision making within manufacturing
processes. Informing modelling, prediction and simulation andtracking through the make, use and end-of-life cycle.
Process Optimisation
Designing and improving systems to minimise process variability,
maximise resource utilisation and identify best practice. Ensuring
companies make the most of their manufacturing ecosystems
to reduce waste and energy consumption, boosting costcompetitiveness in the UK.
Sustainable Materials
Improving the recyclability of materials to ensure recovered materials
are fit for purpose and developing new manufacturing processes
which adopt recycled raw materials. The theme will also identify
alternative materials from sustainable sources to reduce reliance on
mined raw materials.
Training and Skills
Working together to identify best practice for the training anddevelopment of people across the foundation industries, helping toaddress the skills gaps and to make these vital industries attractive
places to work for everyone.

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Alternative fuels
Led by Glass Futures

The partnership has identified significant shared areas of research and innovationinterest, including: hydrogen for heat and reduction, electric melting, oxy-fuel,sintering and CO2 capture deployment. Across the partner centres, each has scaledup their alternative fuels capability in the following key areas.
•••

Glass Futures, upgrading a 30t/day and 350kW combustion test bed to provide
capabilities for firing a large range of alternative fuels.
Lucideon, upgrading furnace capability to 100% hydrogen firing for a 1.5m2intermittent kiln and a 24m tunnel batch kiln, to provide support to theceramics sector for retrofitting existing furnace equipment in the changeoverto hydrogen usage.
Materials Processing Institute, upgrading a 2MW pilot reheat / treat heat
furnace to run on hydrogen, installing an electrolytic metal refining rig and lab
scale hydrogen furnace for refractory testing.

Supported by Royce and CPI the five centres are working on projects to understandthe impact on processing, formability and performance of hydrogen and electricity
in furnace and kilns.

Circular economy
Led by the Henry Royce Institute

The work is focused on enabling the recycling, reduction and reuse of packaging
with a particular focus on biodegradability and compostability end of life plastic
packaging.
The partner centres are scaling up their capability in this area by:•Improving facilities to manufacture cements at a range of scales from 5kg to1000kg, including milling or pre-processing equipment.
•Investment in coating screening technology and equipment to better
understand the circularity of chemical products.
•Development of a Circular Economy Centre for testing and pre-processing ofmetals at high and low temperatures.
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to optimise manufacturing operations .
The partnership is developing key concepts, including a Centre of CircularInnovation (focus on paper with Confederation of Paper Industries) and acircular economy building demonstrator. A sprint project led by the EconoMISER
Application Scientist will look at future polymers in partnership with an industrialpartner.

Other areas under consideration are the impact of furnace operation on refractory
wear, the location and types of burners to minimise energy use, the use of agitation
to prevent cold spots, heat capture and re-use to improve system design andmanufacturing layouts.

Digital Sensing
Led by CPI

The investment by the project is in software and hardware capability to accurately
measure and control processes to make higher quality and higher value productswith less waste. Significant progress has been on the development of two large
scale project proposals:••

Asset optimisation through federated learning to explore the scope fortechniques that improve processes across the foundation industries. The
concept would develop a one stop shop for process modelling and federated
learning within FISC that offers long term support (design, prototyping andpiloting) to the UK foundation industries.
Development of new alloy materials using artificial intelligence to develop
digital methods of developing and understanding the properties of new alloys.

Process Optimisation
Led by Lucideon

The focus of the theme and work to date has been in two areas. The first is theapplication of sensoring, time series manufacturing data collection and machinelearning analysis to improve operational efficiency, and improve yield. Thisapproach is initially being applied within the ceramics industry to develop moredetailed learning which can then be shared across the foundation industries.
The second area of activity is the optimisation of existing furnace and reheat
capability to support decarbonisation and lower energy usage. Key to this workis the development of sensors that can report temperature distributions, andsystems that can accurately control temperature, improve ramp up rates to an
optimum temperature profile and reduce heat loss. The team are assembling
demonstrator furnace equipment with the ability to capture operational data,
which can be analysed and developed into furnace models using machine learning
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Sustainable Materials
Led by the Materials Processing Institute

The focus to date of this theme is on advanced coating projects to reduce theimpact of coatings on scrap metal quality and to consider the role of coatings inmaximising the efficiency of furnaces.
Additionally a geopolymer cement scale-up facility is being established at
Lucideon to focus on transfer geopolymer processes from small to large batchsizes, lowering reduce embedded carbon in cements and promote technology
take-up. The facility provides the capability to formulate geopolymers fordifferent functions; increase process scale from laboratory scale (5 litre batches)to demonstration level (1,000 litre batches). Characterise product propertiesand durability against acceptance standards. The facility will also develop novel
cements and concretes.
Significant work has been undertaken in the field of ‘Rapid Alloy Development’to streamline the process of developing new materials with the objective ofincreasing the supply of UK materials, control over feedstocks and supporting thecontinuation of existing assets while future proofing foundation industries within
the wider economy.
A series of project opportunities have been identified, with industry support in arange of areas within this theme, including:••••

Increasing the power atomisation yield, Ar recover from gas, power recycling.
New cement testing facilities to ensure innovations in cement development
are proven for use in industry.
Testing the effects of hydrogen on stress cracking, creep ductility andsuperalloys.
Projects to reduce the lead content of brass, aiming to reduce lead content by2035.

9Collaboration
The EconoMISER project started in October 2022 and has since employed threeFellows with experience in the foundation industry. They are working acrossindustry, academia and the Innovation centres to understand their needs and linkindustry partners with the centres to address common challenges.
Emerging Ideas
The FISC partners, working through the EconoMISER project have identified anumber of small sprint projects and bigger, longer-term projects. The prioritised,medium-term projects include:•A refractory test facility•A low carbon and geopolymer cement and concrete test facility•
A UK speciality steels and metals platform•
Federated learning systems centre for the FI industries•
A paper innovation centre•
A furnace and heat, modelling and use group•An alternative fuels demonstration facility
The EconoMISER sprint portfolio is managed using the project pipeline principle.
This ensures enquires are assessed in an objective manner and Application
Scientist resource is assigned in an equitable manner. The portfolio (figure 1),
currently includes projects for the metals, glass, paper, polymer, composites andtextile manufacturing sectors. To date Application Scientists have conducted
desk-based studies, experimental investigations and a combination depending on
client’s requirements. Two sprints have received resource from two FISC partners.
All sprints have a direct link to an organisation in the foundation industry supply
chain and align to one or more of the EconoMISER research themes. Examples ofreported SPRINTS include the following:

Figure 1: The EconoMISER sprint portfolio

Progress to Date
The EconoMISER project reports quarterly and this mid-term report covers
progress in the first three quarters. Over the first 9 months of the project thefollowing has been completed:•••

A study to understand the sustainability and environmental impact of paper
intended for conversion in to tissue products (sustainability theme).
Metallurgical assessment of a surface feature present after passivation andgalvanising of a steel construction product (process optimisation andreduction of waste, circular economy themes).

••
•

•

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Two FISC strategy workshops, identifying the strategic priorities for future
investment in collaboration across centres.
All procurement activity commenced.
FISC Board established with TransFIRe agreed as Advisory Board.
EconoMISER sprint projects have been facilitated across the research themes
led by the Fellows and Application Scientists, working closely across centres
and industry partners.
Secured £18m in funding for EconoMISER 2 to accelerate industry-facingcollaboration11

To discuss collaboration opportunities please get in touch

ukfisc.org

EconoMISER is funded by Innovate UKas part of the Transforming Foundation
Industries (TFI) Challenge.

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