UCL Centre for Nature-Inspired Engineering

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At the Centre for Nature-Inspired Engineering (CNIE), we draw lessons from natural systems, materials or processes to engineer innovative technologies to tackle grand challenges in areas such as energy, water, materials, health, and living space. The CNIE was created in 2013 by Professor Marc-Olivier Coppens thanks to a £5M “Frontier Engineering” Award from the EPSRC, one of only five such Awards in the UK. Follow-up funding from the EPSRC was received in 2019, via a “Frontier Engineering: Progression” Award. Since its creation, CNIE has grown into an interdisciplinary hub for innovation at UCL, with collaborators around the globe. The success of the CNIE also led to the launching in 2022 of an MSc programme on Nature-Inspired Solutions.

What is Nature-Inspired Engineering?

What can the structure of the human lung teach us about efficiency, which we can then use to redesign more efficient hydrogen fuel cells in our race to net zero? How can the self-assembling propensity of natural materials underpin the biomanufacture of sustainable alternatives to plastics? How can the branching networks of trees that distribute nutrients throughout their structure inform the design of more efficient chemical reactors? What can interspecies networks underpinning ecosystems teach us about effective supply chains and eliminating waste?

Rather than imitating nature out of context or succumbing to superficial analogies, research at the CNIE takes a decidedly scientific approach to uncover fundamental mechanisms underlying desirable traits from Nature, such as scalability, robustness, material and energy efficiency, and apply them to design and manufacture engineered systems that hereby borrow the traits of the natural model. These systems – water purification membranes, fuel cells, catalysts, adaptive materials, even solutions to cancer immunotherapy – thus become endowed with the same desirable characteristic as their models in nature.

Research Themes

By drawing inspiration from Nature, CNIE researchers address a wide range of problems. Our work stimulates lateral thinking, accelerating not just the solution to a challenge in one area, but also facilitating translation to applications in other areas. The following paper discusses NICE (Nature-Inspired Chemical Engineering) and the nature-inspired solution methodology:

• M.-O. Coppens, Nature-inspired chemical engineering for process intensification. Ann. Rev. Chem. Biomolec. Eng. 12, 187–215 (2021)  

Our work can be broadly classified into four themes (T1-T4) corresponding to universal mechanisms underpinning desired properties in nature:

Learn more about our application areas. To find out more about our latest discoveries and innovative technologies, please visit the publications lists from the Coppens, Lan and López Barreiro groups. 

Our Facilities

The CNIE contains a wide range of equipment including state-of-the-art SAXS/WAXS, Mercury Porosimeter, Gas Sorption Analyser (BET), Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and thermal gravimetric analysis with mass spectrometry (TGA-MS). It is located on the second floor and the upper basement of the Roberts Building, Chemical Engineering Department, UCL, Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7JE.

Discover more about our facilities and equipment.

People

Core Team

Prof Marc-Olivier Coppens

CNIE Director / Ramsay Memorial Professor
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Dr Yang Lan

Lecturer in Nature-Inspired Chemical Engineering
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Dr Diego Lopez Barreiro

Lecturer in Nature-Inspired Chemical Engineering
UCL Profile

Related Programmes 

Post-Graduate Taught

• Nature-Inspired Solutions MSc
• Nature-Inspired Chemical Engineering Module
   

Post-graduate Research

• PhD Research

Funding and Partnerships

Our work would not be possible without the generous contributions of our funding agencies, industrial collaborators and donors. We are always open to new collaboration opportunities, so please get in touch with us if you are interested in working with the CNIE. Our work has received funding from: 

EPSRC, BBSRC, Royal Society, Innovate UK, Industry, Cancer Grand Challenges (CRUK, NCI and the Mark Foundation) for the NexTGen project and philanthropic donors, sponsoring PhDs and postdoctoral researchers.

Entrepreneurship 

The research developed at CNIE has a highly entrepreneurial character. Some examples of spin outs stemming from CNIE research involve: 

“Aerograft” dental materials. Patent portfolio (inventors: Niall Kent and Marc-Olivier Coppens) were licensed through UCL Business. Related to this, former CNIE postdoctoral researcher Dr Niall Kent won the first RAEng Launchpad Award and UCL Enterprise & Innovation Early Career Award (2019), CNIE PhD alumna Dr L. Silo Meoto was a Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Enterprise Fellow (2017) to support the development of the materials.  

LION Software (founded by Lucy Todd, PhD student with Marc-Olivier Coppens): online data visualisation software and professional development 

Join Us 

There are multiple funding opportunities available for postdocs and PhD students. If you would like to apply to any of this funding schemes, please reach out and we will discuss supporting options. 

Postdoctoral researchers 

You can find general information about funding options on the UCL website.

Specific funding schemes include: 

• Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships
• Branco Weiss Fellowship
• Wellcome Trust Fellowship
• Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship
• EPSRC postdoctoral fellowship
• BBSRC Fellowship scheme
• Royal Society Newton International Fellowships
• Schmidt Science fellowship
• 1851 research fellowship
• Swiss National Science Foundation
• L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Rising Talents 

PhD students 

Information about general PhD funding can be found on the UCL website. Specific funding schemes include:  

• UCL Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs)
• BBSRC LIDo (London Interdisciplinary Doctoral) programme
• Internal/external UCL scholarships
• Newton PhD Programme
• Commonwealth PhD scholarships