Professor Joao Cabral, Imperial College London

“Structured products” or “formulations” underpin one of the largest industrial sectors in the UK, comprising a range of industries including pharmaceutical, food, agri-chemical, oils and lubricants, paints and coatings, as well as consumer goods. Our industrial partner, Procter & Gamble, is a global leader in fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), including in the development of home and personal care products. Such ‘formulations’ are generally multicomponent mixtures, often multiphase, and contain components of different types (including surfactants, polymers, enzymes, colloids in various media), each with a specific intended function. These mixtures are generally out of equilibrium, in metastable or kinetically trapped states, and/or derive their performance for that non-equilibrium state, yet our understanding of their fundamental behaviour is often based on near-equilibrium properties. In a formulated product, the cost of formulation components represents a fraction (typically <10%) of the value of products, and thus the added value derives from the design and processing of components. Despite the importance, the academic and industrial consensus is that the development of formulations is largely incremental, empirical and thus costly, lacking the resilience and agility respond to pressing challenges in sustainability, supply chain fluctuations, regulatory demands and evolving consumer expectations, without loss or compromise on performance or commercial viability. This Research Chair programme seeks to develop approaches that will enable the development of next-generation of high-performance, sustainable, and tailored formulations.