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What does CMD do?

What is high-throughput materials discovery?

How can industry access CMD?

Where is CMD located?

What is the Legal Status of CMD?


What does CMD do? back to top

The new facility provides research and knowledge transfer service to business and academia in the area of HT materials discovery. We provide access to state-of-the-art facilities (e.g., robotics & associated IT infrastructure) supported by dedicated, highly trained staff and closely affiliated with the base of relevant academic expertise in the NW Universities. The Centre provides research facilities plus training in HT methodology primarily to provide UK industry access to this new technology.

What is high-throughput materials discovery? back to top

Materials research has traditionally been done by producing and characterising materials one at a time. This serial approach is often a slow, laborious, and expensive process. “High-Throughput” (HT) approaches harness the power of automated synthesis and characterisation techniques in combination with an IT infrastructure designed to handle large quantities of information to produce and characterise 10s – 100s of materials in parallel. This accelerated approach to materials research makes it easier to understand the complexity of many problems in materials science.

If HT materials discovery is so efficient, why is it not yet common in UK industry?
The major barriers are:
(i) the high entry costs associated with the equipment, and;
(ii) a lack of personnel trained in HT methods.

HT technology (HTT) is expensive and it is difficult even for the largest companies to invest unilaterally in the relevant equipment. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that a whole suite of technology is required to make progress in this field. There is little advantage in possessing equipment to generate large libraries of materials without the associated equipment and IT infrastructure to characterise all of the samples produced, and vice versa.

How can industry access CMD? back to top

There are five main mechanisms for businesses to interact with the CMD (a typical project may involve more than one of these mechanisms):

1. Contracted research: Carried out by dedicated, highly-trained, full-time Senior Experimental Officer (SEO)
2. ‘Hotdesking’: Company employees work for fixed-term periods within the Centre, supported by the full-time SEOs. This includes access to laboratory and office space, meeting rooms and conference facilities.
3. Fixed-term research programmes placed with the University of Liverpool with specified access to CMD facilities and support from SEOs, when required
4. Training: HTT training for industrial employees through workshops, seminars, on-site training visits
5. Specific mechanisms for interacting with SME’s (e.g., Government funding schemes for example DTi’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) scheme)


Where is CMD located? back to top

CMD is located at the University of Liverpool adjacent to the Department of Chemistry with strong links to the Manchester Universities through the Organic Materials Innovation Centre (OMIC) and the Molecular Materials Centre (MMC). CMD provides a recently refurbished 1600m2 space including custom-designed suite of laboratories, office space, open-plan HT research laboratory, training facilities, IT suite and conference rooms

What is the Legal Status of CMD? back to top

CMD is a discrete project with its own source of funding (European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the North West Development Agency (NWDA) and other Public and Private sector sources) within the University of Liverpool. All contracts in regard to accessing CMD facilities or performing research will be subject to standard University of Liverpool terms and conditions.

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