The Northwest of England is home to the UK’s largest and most extensive cluster of chemical-using industries, generating in excess of £10 billion in sales and representing 20% of the entire UK chemical industry. Daresbury’s focus for development is the Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry which was opened in 2009 by John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and builds on the region’s existing research strengths and capabilities.
Daresbury Laboratory has provided platform technology to the chemicals industry for many years through the capabilities of the Synchrotron Radiation Source and SuperSTEM (the world’s most resolving electron microscope) in evaluating and characterising material and chemical structures. However, in more recent years, this has also been complemented by the molecular/mesoscale modelling and simulation capabilities of the Computational Science and Engineering Department.
The Daresbury SIC Chemicals and Specialities brochure is available to download.
There are over 14,000 registered users of the Daresbury Laboratory facilities and it has links with every research university in the UK.