The University of Wollongong (UOW), through its Australian Institute for Innovative Materials (AIIM) will play an important role in two Co-operative Research Centres announced by the Federal Government – the $26 million Automotive Australia 2020 CRC and the $14.5 million CRC for Polymers.

AIIM, located on the University of Wollongong’s Innovation Campus, houses UOW’s flagship research centres -- the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Electromaterials Science.

An extension to the AIIM building, the federally-funded Australian Institute for Innovative Materials (AIIM) Processing and Devices Facility, will soon be fully operational. The first of its kind in Australia, it promises to produce multifunctional materials at the scale and quantity required to bridge the so-called “valley of death” to commercialisation.

The research team at UOW’s Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials (ISEM) is set to play a key role in the Automotive Australia 2020 Cooperative Research Centre, driving the advancement of electrification technologies for use in electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The ISEM team, in fact, will be the program leader for vehicle electrification within the Automotive CRC.

With its strengths in research and niche manufacturing, Australia is well placed to engage with the rapidly-growing Asian automotive market by providing technology for low emission cars and sustainable manufacturing. The new CRC will tackle the complex issues that are currently impeding the uptake of low-carbon vehicles worldwide; with innovation specifically in the areas of vehicle electrification, gaseous fuels and clean manufacturing.

ISEM Director Professor Shi Xue Dou said that over the coming years research conducted by the Institute will be critical to producing more affordable and more reliable electric vehicle batteries and supercapacitor as well as thermoelectric modules.

“This research is critical to improving electric vehicle driving range so as to encourage the widespread adoption of electric vehicles in public and private transportation system. UOW-developed technologies could eventually be used globally.

 “The new state-of-the-art facilities at AIIM are helping us set a world-class capabilities for processing and fabrication of high performance electrode and electrolyte materials as well as thermoelectric modules for waste heat recovery. New testing equipment will also raise the bar in effectively testing battery safety and performance.

 “Hopefully in the coming years we will see electric vehicles on the streets of Wollongong that are powered by technology that researchers at UOW have helped develop”, Professor Dou said.

Meanwhile, the CRC for Polymers will establish Australian manufacturing as a leading provider and exporter of products that meet emerging global needs in three areas — health therapies, water and food security, and low-cost solar energy — by developing enabling and sustainable advanced polymer technology.

The products developed will improve productivity, grow the manufacturing sector, create high-skill high-value manufacturing jobs, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Professor David Officer of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) will lead the solar energy program to fabricate inexpensive polymer-based dye sensitised solar cells and develop advanced polymer films for encapsulating and protecting solar cells.

Professor Officer said he was delighted with the outcome, which will see a more than doubling in size of the IPRI solar energy research program as well as commercial development of results from the program.

“This research will not only lead to low cost solar cells that can be put on a wide variety of indoor and outdoor surfaces, but also provide the materials to ensure that those solar cells last for 20 years or more,” Professor Officer said.

Both projects will ultimately benefit manufacturing in the Illawarra since a spin-off company based in Wollongong will be incubated by the Centre to more widely commercialise the polymer solar cell technology.

“The new funding provides an excellent opportunity to build on previous successes at UOW. This is a consequence of CRC researchers having worked alongside other IPRI researchers in an integrated and effective way for many years, with the Centre providing an obvious conduit for exploitation of the more fundamental discoveries.”

“In that regard, these projects will be ideally suited to the outstanding new AIIM Processing and Devices Facility at the Innovation Campus,” Professor Officer said.

The solar energy program also involves researchers at the University of Newcastle, the University of Queensland, the Queensland University of Technology, the University of New South Wales, Monash University and ANSTO.

Senator Carr announced six successful CRCs worth a total of $148 million. For more information about all the successful centres see here