wiUSA December 2013

INDEX

Ultraconductive copper award

carbon nanomaterials research group within the department of materials science and metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. “The EC's FP7 funding recognizes the power of transferring technology from Europe's leading research institutions into companies responsible for producing and using millions of tonnes of copper each year.” John Schonenberger, chief executive of the European Copper Institute, added: “The copper industry's participation in this project reflects the importance the industry places on improving the sustainability of its products through increased resource efficiency,” continuing: “While this technology is in the very early stages of development, with many significant hurdles to cross, ultraconductive copper would bring about a step change in the end-use performance obtainable from one tonne of copper.”

A consortium of 14 companies and universities has signed a €3.3 million funding contract through the European Commission's FP7 program to work on the “Ultrawire” project. The project aims to develop ultraconductive copper to manufacturing level within three years. The consortium members will contribute an additional €1.7million of funding to the project. “This is an opportunity for Europe to capture early market share and new manufacturing jobs from the promising new technology of ultraconductive copper,” said Jan Janssen, technical manager of the project and senior productionmanager of copper producer Aurubis. “We are exploiting forefront European carbon manufacturing technology and transferring exciting new materials into industry,” said Dr Krzysztof Koziol, project coordinator and head of the electric

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wiredInUSA - December 2013

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