It was announced in 2024 that one of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) six new Industrial Transformation Training Centres would be headquartered at Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials.

The ARC Training Centre for Resource Efficient Alloys in a Circular Economy ‘circAlloy’ is set to spearhead the development of more efficient and sustainable materials in the pathway to net zero. It will bring together a consortium of industry collaborators, including Bradken Resources, Callidus, Bisalloy, Hysata, Doogood Australia and FormFlow,  who are committed to net zero via research and development and seeking skilled people to make the transition.

circAlloy will be supported by $4,988,139 in ARC funding and will be led by Deakin Distinguished Professor Matthew Barnett, Chair in Metallurgy at Deakin’s Institute for Frontier Materials. Professor Barnett is an ARC Laureate whose world-leading research team unlocks the potential of metals to develop longer-lasting, energy-saving alloys, for critical industries such as mining and construction.

Deakin’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Initiative and the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney will be part of the centre with Professor Barnett joined by centre deputy directors Professor Daniel Fabijanic (Deakin) and Professor Damien Giurco (University of Technology Sydney).

Professor Jenny Pringle joined forces with researchers from Monash University to develop a new trimodal thermal energy storage material for renewable energy. Renewable energy is known to be limited due to its lack of an efficient, sustainable and cost-effective energy storage solution.

Prof Pringle, alongside Ms Saliha Saher, Dr Sam Johnston, Ms Ratu Esther-Kelvin, Prof Douglas MacFarlane and Dr Karolina Matuszek, designed a trimodal material that stores large quantities of thermal energy by combining three energy storage modes – latent, thermochemical and sensible.

The discovery has unlocked new pathways to develop high-energy capacity materials for renewable energies such as wind and solar, as well as providing a greater understanding of chemistry and physics of material design.

IFM researchers have successfully turned wool waste into quality yarn for Country Road in 2024, as part of the Mud to Marle project.

The IFM research team, led by Associate Professor Christopher Hurren, demonstrated how a low-impact textile could be created using short wool fibre, often discarded as waste, and cotton to create a marle yarn (made of 30% wool and 70% cotton fibres). Supported by the Country Road Climate Fund and managed by Full Circle Fibres (a B Corp-certified social enterprise) with contributions from industry partners Loomtex and Michell Wool, IFM researchers made a pallet of 12 colours to show the marle effects that could be achieved. A production run of four colours for woven and knitted fabrics demonstrated that the technology could be scaled in production.

“The project achieved a low impact product by several means,” Assoc Prof Hurren said.

“Only the wool fibre was dyed saving more than 70% of water, effluent, chemicals and energy.

“Through this project we were able to weave and knit fabrics that were turned into beautiful garments. It proved that textiles of low impact could be produced in Australia from Australian fibres.”

The project has led to an ongoing relationship between Michell Wool and Deakin University to further develop wool cotton products through the IFM-led ARC Research Hub for Future Fibres.

In 2024, Institute for Frontier Materials researchers based at the Carbon Nexus strengthened their position as global leaders in carbon fibre research by developing and manufacturing a new bio-based carbon fibre.

In partnership with multi-national oil and gas company PETRONAS, the project utilised IFM’s in-depth understanding of structure-property processing relationships in polymers and fibres and PETRONAS’s commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Utilising lignin, the second most abundant biopolymer on the planet, and a major by-product in pulping and bio-refining industries, IFM researchers Dr Srinivas Nunna and Dr Huma Khan led by Associate Professor Claudia Creighton and Professor Russell Varley, successfully developed and manufactured carbon fibre from lignin/cellulose biomass using Carbon Nexus’s pilot-scale facilities.

The project demonstrated the continuous production of “green” carbon fibre, covering the entire manufacturing chain in-house at Carbon Nexus, starting from the polymer, precursor fibre spinning, carbonisation and the subsequent intermediate product.

This successfully demonstrated how the company could utilise a portion of the 27 million tonnes of agricultural waste produced yearly in Malaysia and convert it into high-value material, with a reduction of overall carbon footprint during its manufacturing.

A significant leap towards the development of polymer-in-salt electrolytes for solid-state batteries was made in 2024 thanks to a study out of IFM.

The study, led by IFM researchers Dr Shinju Kondou, Dr Fangfang Chen and Deakin Distinguished Professor Maria Forsyth, combined experimental and computational methods to explore the mechanisms of polymer-in-salt electrolytes – demonstrating how extreme salt concentrations helped enhance electrolyte performance. The study was a largely unexplored area in solid-state battery development. Solid-state batteries offer a safer, more powerful alternative to lithium-ion batteries – due to the use of stable solid electrolytes, such as polymer-in-salt electrolytes, as ion conductors.

The study was a collaboration with researchers from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (USA), Yokohama National University (Japan), CIC energiGUNE Basque Research and Technology Alliance (Spain), and Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China).

In another research project, Dr Faezeh Makhlooghiazad explored the development of novel polymer electrolytes for all-solid-state sodium and lithium metal batteries. The study, in collaboration with CIC Energigune, Spain, Polymat, Spain, CNRS, University of Orléans, France, Calix and CSIRO, used innovative polymer membranes as sustainable binders in cathode active materials, specifically NaFePO₄ (NFP) for sodium batteries and LiMn₂O₄ (LMO) for lithium batteries. It demonstrated excellent electrochemical performance, proposing these materials for next-generation energy storage systems.

IFM researchers remained committed to tackling microplastics pollution in 2024. In addition to the work by Associate Professor Alessandra Sutti in educating thousands of students and teachers around the world on how to find microplastics, IFM continued its research on reducing microplastics shedding during laundering.

In partnership with Simba Global, Australia’s largest commercial linen supplier, IFM researchers explore how to reduce microplastic shedding during washing. Simba currently processes 950,000 tonnes of textiles annually through commercial laundering. In 2024, the IFM team, consisting of Dr Yi Zhang, graduate researcher Md Imran Hossain and led by Assoc Prof Maryam Naebe, developed a comprehensive definition of textile microplastics – introducing a standardised terminology to improve accuracy and ensure that textile microplastics are well-differentiated from microplastics from other sources.

Using novel techniques for quantifying and characterising fibre fragments independently allowed the team to precisely assess shedding under simulated commercial washing conditions. This detailed understanding not only advances scientific knowledge of fibre-shedding mechanisms but also guides the development of textiles engineered for reduced environmental impact.

Looking ahead, Simba Global has set an ambitious goal to reduce microplastic shedding by 50% by 2030. The project is part of the ARC Research Hub for Future Fibres, which is led by IFM Deputy Director Professor Joselito Razal.

IFM’s Carbon Nexus carbon fibre research and manufacturing facility marked its 10th year of operation in 2024.

The facility is home to the world’s largest open access carbon fibre pilot production line, supporting the development of carbon fibre products and technologies in Geelong for a critical global industry.

Located in the heart of Deakin’s Future Economy Precinct at the Waurn Ponds campus, Carbon Nexus has partnered with leading global companies including Vestas, PETRONAS, the Ford Motor Company, SABIC, Boeing and Solvay. Importantly, Carbon Nexus produced the first ever entirely home-grown Australian carbon fibre shortly after their establishment.

Carbon Nexus was the catalyst for over 1,400 jobs and growth in the Geelong region, employing skilled workers displaced by the closure of local manufacturing between 2014-16 and boosting the growth of the Future Economy Precinct.

IFM’s Associate Professor Will Gates contributed to a paper that revealed geotextile lining systems, essential components of composite lining systems in modern landfills to contain waste and leachates seeping into soil and waterways, potentially spread harmful ultra short-chain PFASs into the environment.

In the paper, “Are Geotextiles Silent Contributors of Ultrashort Chain PFASs to the Environment”, researchers, including IFM’s Associate Professor Will Gates, analysed per- and poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in geotextiles commonly used in geosynthetic composite lining systems for waste containment facilities.

The research revealed that the geotextiles do contain the ultrashort chain PFAS compound pentafluoropropionic acid (PFPrA) – usually considered a breakdown product of other PFAS. Although smaller PFAS are considered less toxic and used in many consumer products, they also appear to disperse further and are present everywhere they have been looked for, according to Assoc Prof Gates.