N8 BioHub Information and Knowledge Management System

Innovative ICT can play a crucial role in many innovation processes, but its potential is not always exploited in many industries. A route to innovation in chemical using industries is the exploitation of materials in what would otherwise be lost to waste streams from current manufacturing processes. This is interesting both in terms of realising additional value from manufacturing, but also in reduced utilisation of unsustainable material sources and exploitation of novel feedstocks for novel functional materials with new application benefits. This project will develop an information system based on highly innovative information technologies with the capability to rapidly identify the feedstock and functional material opportunities, and demonstrate its value in rapid bio-derived surfactant discovery. The key advances made will be in automation of large scale information analysis and mining, and in development of many-criteria optimisation algorithms to pin point innovative candidate materials from the very large numbers of possible options.