Process technology

Field

Category

Sub-category

Relevance

Reactor science

Waste storage and control

Industrial energy and human waste will increasingly need high efficiency, advanced treatment mechanisms. Creation of environmentally benign materials will reduce the need to store waste. Enhanced capabilities for biological water purification and sewage treatment and storage of ultimate wastes were cited as important goals.

Catalysis

Catalysts

Increase efficiency of thermal processing, produce pollution control catalysts.

Separation technologies

Remediation and restoration

Remediation and restoration

Goals for increasing efficiency remediation were a high priority cited in most reports. Restoring habitats at lower costs, improving decontamination and rehabilitation of polluted soils, recovery of spilled oils and other hazardous substances and restoring tropical forest ecosystems were also key goals.

Comprehensive recycling systems

Using waste to help provide energy, reducing product packaging, increasing efficiencies in recycling systems, and lower municipal costs are all goals for this field.

Pollution control

Replacing flourocarbon and halon materials and other hazardous materials was cited as a high priority by most countries.

Process development

Materials processing

Pollution avoidance

Achieve lower levels of environmental loading; increase resource efficiency of process industries; take a life-cycle approach to design products and processes; enable multi-dimensional production and recycling/reuse systems.

Energy technology

Field

Category

Sub-category

Relevance

Energy conversion to electricity

Energy storage, conditioning and distribution

Advanced batteries

Applications anticipated include power sources for electric vehicles, the capability of sensing change and bridging intermittent renewable energy sources for greater use feasibility; efficient, lightweight and long-life batteries for portable electronic devices.

Energy management

Treatment of coal and waste incineration

Coal and incineration techniques will remain a large part of energy production; making them cleaner will improve the environment.

Improved electricity generation

Gas turbines

Highly efficient energy generation with minimum pollution will be a key feature of this technology.

Fuel cells

Commercial development of fuel cell technology for distributed generation and transport, possibly using hydrogen and hydrocarbon, will decrease pollution, and enable highly portable electronics products.

Energy saving technologies

Energy efficiency

Building technologies

Reduce demand for energy by increasing energy efficiency of buildings. Provide energy-efficient automated building management.

Energy storage, conditioning and distribution

Power electronics

Goals for this technology field cited in reports include greater stability, lower losses, and faster switching of electric grid; conditioning of current from non phase-locked intermittent sources (renewable). High voltage direct current converter stations and real time systems control will improve efficiency.

Capacitors

Capacitors are important contenders for power sources for clean vehicles. Developments are needed in high energy density capacitors.

Natural gas storage

Technologies for the storage and transportation of liquefied natural gas will increase economical use of this desirable energy source.

Energy recovery

Deep sea oil and gas production technologies

Environmentally benign methods are required.

Renewable energy technologies

Renewable energy

High performance solar cells

Mass production of devices for direct sunlight conversion at competitive prices is the key goal cited here. Other goals include improved performance in a wider range of wind resource sites and conversion to synthetic gas or oil production of electric power.

Organic energy sources

High available and ubiquitous, development of economical technologies that could exploit biomass would aid sustainable development.

Discrete production

Field

Category

Sub-category

Relevance

Production automation technologies

Agriculture & food

Food processing

Improve efficiency and effectiveness of production of mass quantities of healthy food in an environmentally benign manner.

Microfabrication technologies

Micro/nano

Microdevice manufacturing

Better quality, lower-cost micromachines for sensors and control, use in cancer diagnosis, pollution detection and control, and self-replicating devices for space travel.

Biotechnology

Field

Category

Sub-category

Relevance

Breeding of plants and animals

Agriculture and food

Sustainable agricultural production

Goals include improved biological efficiency of agricultural organisms, biological pest control, sustainable agricultural systems, soil and water conservation, and reduced artificial farm chemicals. Improve availability of healthy food and enable greening deserts. Develop high yield environmentally benign processes for large scale plant production for use as fuel, food and input to textile production.

Aquaculture and fisheries

Sustain fisheries population management and production; food quality assurance; avoid catching young fish; non-food fish and mammals.

Bioprocess technology

Biotechnology

Bioprocessing

Bioprocessing, enhanced aquaculture and the development of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. It will also lead to improved speed and efficiency in determining drug safety.

Remediation and restoration

Biosensors

Biological sensors can be applied in hazardous materials sites and remote environmentally monitoring. Significant applications are expected to health care.

Materials technology

Field

Category

Sub-category

Relevance

Development & production of metals

Alloys

Develop lighter, stiffer airframes, automobile frames; enable high-temperature structural applications in aerospace, shipbuilding and other transportation vehicles.

Metals

Develop advanced metals with various properties customised to possible applications in car and ship building.

Development & production of polymers

Textile fibers

Develop textiles that can be used in industrial production, with emphasis on fire-resistant materials; place emphasis on environmentally-benign production methods. Develop advanced membranes that can act as high-fidelity industrial filters, explore medical applications for blood filtering.

Development & production of functional materials

Materials

Superconductors

Develop advanced sensors, low power electronics, power transmission, energy storage, powerful magnets for research, medical diagnosis, and maglev (rail) technology.

Electronic materials

Improve medical imaging, signal processing, data routing; enable ‘smart building’; further the miniaturisation of microwave communication devices and a multitude of other applications.

Opto- & microelectronics

Field

Category

Sub-category

Relevance

Microelectronic components

Components

Radar

Allow forecasting of intense rainfall and snowfall and prediction of hurricanes, tsunamis and ocean current; aid to sea farming, mining and environmentally monitoring.

Microelectronic components: sensors & actuators

Sensors

Physical sensing devices

Integrated sensing/signal processing; expanded in-situ monitoring; integrated systems diagnostics; environment/exposure monitoring; nano-controls; biological hazards detection/process control are anticipated users here.

Biosensors

Biological sensors can be applied in hazardous materials and environmentally monitoring; significant applications are expected in health care.

Chemical sensors

Chemical sensors can increasingly be applied to the manufacturing process, environmental monitoring; product tracking

Measurement & process control

Software & toolkits

Modelling & simulation

Rational design of new chemicals and pharmaceuticals; countermeasures against biological warfare; visualisation of machining process; design for minimising waste will result from advances in this technology.

Advanced software

Software is becoming ubiquitous in networked, telecommunications and computing applications. Continued development of software will facilitate advanced computing and networking applications.

Materials processing

Predictive process control

Measure production temperature, pressure, humidity, radiation, voltage and chemical makeup; seek applications in transportation, medicine and environmental monitoring.

Discrete product manufacturing

Intelligent processing equipment

Enhance process monitoring and control, automate design of large-scale IC’s. Increase production efficiency.

Information & communication technologies

Field

Category

Sub-category

Relevance

Computer & network systems

Communications

Telecom/data routing
Broadband network

Telecommunications and data routing have become priorities for both public and private sector players to improve economic and technical characteristics to support maximum access to the networked information infrastructure. Broadband networks are the key development of a global information infrastructure, particularly as that technology will enable cross-medium communications from satellites to wire and back.

Data & knowledge systems

Software & toolkits applications

Pattern recognition

Advances in this field will reduce development costs, reduce development cycle iterations, create higher product yield and increase manufacturing efficiencies.
Applications could include: Long-term sea level forecasting; Monitoring/correction of acid rain; Natural disaster prediction.

Information management

Large-scale information systems

Financial systems, electrical power grids, and public transport systems will all require advances in large-scale information systems.

Management engineering

Management techniques

Improve techniques to manage large systems and industrial productions.