M2i’s core mission is: To support both industry and society in finding solutions for materials-related questions in product development and production processes. We are currently preparing initiatives on a range of different materials-related subjects. Interested partners are invited to contact us with their ideas, and more specifically on the following subjects.

Circular circuits: design of next generation electronics for a circular economy
Globally the use of electronic devices is growing fast. In particular, the consumer electronics sector is creating the world’s fastest growing stream of e-waste. Closing the material loops for e-waste means minimizing materials use, extension of service life, reuse and refurbishment of products, recycling and waste prevention. M2i is working together with, among others, TU Delft, Leiden University, TNO and Signify to organize a large consortium, along the entire chain, to realize technological, social and economic impact in making electronic circuits circular. The initiative is open for parties that play a role in electronic design, academia that investigate circularity, institutes that act in repair and refurbish and SME’s that challenge established supply chains.
For further questions, please contact M2i program manager Harald Kerp, phone: 06-2505 7505.

ULTIMATE: Multi-material additive manufacturing of functional components
Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology development is driven by increasing demand for products with geometric complexity, custom features, lightweight form and advanced materials properties. Conventional AM can help achieve these goals up to a point where the only way to proceed further is through multi-material technology. Such technology will therefore require rethinking on how the basic processes must be combined to form the next generation of AM. ULTIMATE aims to gain insight into how different materials can be combined together in the context of additive manufacturing and related processes. Material combinations will focus on achieving functionality that will lead to parts with designed-in properties in specific regions. To bring the AM technology to a new level by introducing functionality in a product during manufacturing and recognizing the needs of our industrial partners, M2i is looking for the possibility to set up a large scale program for Perspectief 20/21 call of TTW/NWO in collaboration with U Twente and TU Delft. For more details, please contact Viktoria Savran, phone 06-5168 4303.

Sustainable and Reliable Macro Steel Infra-Structures in 2030 (SUBLIME): towards 50 % lower primary steel consumption and 50 % lower CO2 emission in our 2030 infrastructure
Our society depends heavily on the availability of complex and expensive macro steel structures, e.g. for transportation, energy supply, industrial production, communication, defence, etc. This initiative aims at improving the sustainability of aging steel structures by developing advanced structural health monitoring and data handling techniques. As a result, the lifetime of steel structures can be extended and components reused while their safety is guaranteed and circular business models are available. M2i is working together with, among others, TU Eindhoven, TU Delft, University of Twente and Leiden University to organize a cross-disciplinary consortium to realize the above mentioned goals. The initiative is open for all parties that are interested to contribute.
For further questions, please contact M2i program manager Harald Kerp, phone: 06-2505 7505.

HYDRAFUEL: merging hydrogen and Liquified Natural Gas into an eco-transition fuel for transport applications.
One of the bottlenecks for large scale implementation of hydrogen as a fuel is the relatively low energy density of hydrogen gas. This problem plays especially in transport applications, where storing large volumes of gas is not economical. One has to liquefy the fuel. Hydrogen would need to be stored under extremely high pressures (700-800 bar) and/or extremely low temperature (-253oC). In this initiative we pursue a fuel consisting of a mixture of hydrogen with solid methane, in which significant portions of hydrogen can be incorporated. The methane, which is the principal constituent of LNG, solidifies at -182 oC, while liquid LNG is currently stored at -162 oC. M2i is working together with TU Eindhoven, TNO, and Hanzehogeschool to investigate phase diagrams, properties, production, combustion technology and safety of this novel fuel. The initiative is open for all parties that are interested to contribute. We explicitly aim for fuels for transport: Maritime, Aviation, Automotive.
For further questions, please contact M2i program manager Jan Dirk Kamminga, phone 06-2279 6102.

Data enhanced physical models to reduce material use
In this initiative we will develop material models which combine physical models with data models. Material models are essential to design and control manufacturing processes for advanced materials. Models that are currently in use are usually based on mathematical descriptions of the underlying physics. Variations in material properties are difficult to describe. As compared to purely physical models, data enhanced physical models have the potential to translate (micro) physical processes more reliably into macroscopic properties. They enable to model material behavior without using full, time consuming and often tedious multi-scale modeling steps and to control phenomena with incomplete quantitative physical understanding and uncertainties in material parameters. At the same time, the advantages of physical models are maintained: it will be possible to predict outside the range for which data are available and mild extrapolation will be possible, which is a weakness of purely data-based models. Also, the required amount of data is limited compared to pure data models. Although our approach will not be material specific, we will focus on steel. Steels have an extremely diverse range of tunable properties and exhibit very complex thermo-mechanical processing‐property relations. Plastic deformation of material presents a pronounced history dependence and strong discontinuities at elastic‐plastic transitions which makes the development of appropriate data models very challenging. Our overall focus will be on making the steel manufacturing process more flexible with respect to the composition of the primary material. The approach will be to enhance physical models that are good for baseline behavior with data-analysis and machine learning techniques to quickly adapt predictive models to specific compositions. This will enable to efficiently adapt the manufacturing process to composition variations as a result of future steel production methods with larger proportions of recycled material and smaller environmental footprint. M2i is exploring this opportunity with University of Twente, TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, Tata Steel and SKF.
For further questions, please contact M2i program manager Jan Dirk Kamminga, phone 06-2279 6102.