A new UK facility will use acoustic mixing—sound waves, not blades—to stir chemical reactions, aiming to replace energy-intensive industrial processes with cleaner alternatives. Most chemical manufacturing today relies on large volumes of solvents and high heat, producing significant waste and carbon emissions. Mechanochemistry, which drives reactions through mechanical force rather than heat or solvents, offers a greener route, but scaling it from lab bench to factory floor has been difficult. This Resonant Acoustic Mixing (RAM) Facility will bridge that gap by providing both small-scale instruments for fundamental science and pilot-scale systems—only ten exist worldwide, all currently inside industry sites—that can test new processes at near-commercial scale. If successful, the facility could accelerate the development of cleaner manufacturing methods across sectors including pharmaceuticals, batteries, green energy, and recycling. It may enable solvent-free synthesis of battery materials, more efficient recycling of composites and electronic waste, and new routes to nanomaterials. The facility is designed as an open, centrally located resource with dedicated staff, giving academic and industrial researchers access to technology that has until now been locked inside corporate R&D. The project is fundamentally about enabling sustainable chemistry at scale, not about a single product or application.
View original technical description
The aim of this RAM Facility, to be established by our team of researchers in Chemistry, Engineering and Chemical Engineering, and in partnership with Resodyn Acoustic Mixers, the pioneering developer and only manufacturer of this technology, is to create in the UK an internationally visible hotbed of innovation in sustainable processes and materials. It will be a globally unique, self-sustained resource to help researchers and industries kick-start green chemical manufacturing in the UK through innovative technologies, sustainable product portfolios and potentially creation of spin-outs. The potential to advance both research and sustainable manufacturing is evident by almost 50 Support Letters that provide a cross-section of potential users and problems that can be addressed at the RAM Facility. The letters come from a wide community, including senior and early career researchers from the UK and abroad, interdisciplinary centres, as well as UK and international SMEs and large industries. Letters also demonstrate alignment and complementarity with many UK research centres and national facilities. The objectives of the RAM Facility are to enable and promote sustainability-oriented innovation in fundamental science and chemical manufacturing. This is summarised in a set of Science and Technology Challenges that will advance mechanochemistry for clean manufacturing, recycling and waste valorisation, discovery and development of materials for green, sustainable technologies (nanomaterials, battery materials, supercapacitors), and many other areas. This will advance diverse science disciplines (chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering, chemistry, physics, geosciences, metallurgy and materials, and applied mathematics) and industry sectors, including (but not limited to) additive manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, agricultural, chemical, defence, FMCG, food, green energy, and pharmaceutical sectors. Through small- and large pilot-scale instruments, the facility will uniquely support fundamental science of mechanochemistry and enable new concepts for sustainable manufacturing to be explored and immediately advanced to high TRLs. Only 10 pilot-scale systems have been installed in the world, all of them within industry sites, making our vision to place such a system into a truly "open" RAM Facility, centrally located, easily accessible and supported by dedicated staff, with access based on competitive and transparent research excellence, EDI and RRI criteria, truly transformative and of high impact for new sustainable technologies.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know