Minister praises work of local research centre

Employment and Learning Minister Angela Smith tonight paid tribute to a local research centre which is successfully transferring its work to the world of industry.

The Minister was speaking at Parliament Buildings during a celebratory dinner in honour of QUILL, (the Queen’s University Ionic Liquids Laboratories), attended by research scientists and industrial partners from across the globe.

Commending them on their work, the Minister said: “What makes QUILL so distinctive and such a resounding success is the combination of its world-class research excellence, with its commitment to exploit and commercialise its findings through working in partnership with industry as opposed to simply working for industry.

“I have no doubt that this dual approach was a major factor in the award to QUILL of a highly prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education and its recent selection to represent the whole of the UK in the G8’s new Carnegie Green Network.”

The Minister praised QUILL for making new discoveries on almost a daily basis to help make industry cleaner and more efficient. She cited the astonishing BASF example, of an 80,000 fold increase in productivity resulting from the use of ionic liquids, as giving a clear indication of the potential of these so-called ‘designer solvents’.

Referring to the Secretary of State’s recent announcement of the £35million Skills and Science fund, the Minister continued: “One of the key aims of this fund is to ensure that the excellent academic research undertaken locally, will transfer successfully to industry.  Successful knowledge transfer is a vital component in attracting inward investment to Northern Ireland.

“QUILL is an exemplar of effective and dynamic collaboration between academia and industry and the international recognition they have received is testament to this.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

  1. QUILL (Queen’s University Ionic Liquids Laboratories) was founded in April 1999 as an industrial consortium, with members from all sectors of the chemical industry. It was the first research centre in the world to focus on the development of ionic liquids and it is now the leading centre worldwide. It won the “Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education” in 1996.
  2. Research carried out between QUILL and individual companies, or by QUILL itself, has generated more than 20 patent applications. Its 16 members (including ICI, BP and Shell) are drawn from all sectors of the chemical industry and are located in nine countries and on four continents. The total income generated by QUILL to date exceeds £8million.
  3. Ionic liquids act as solvents for a broad spectrum of chemical processes and can dissolve a wide range of materials – even rocks, coal and almost anything organic. However, unlike conventional solvents, they do not emit vapours.  They have remarkable properties which have tremendous applications in the development of clean technology for manufacturing processes.
  4. The Carnegie Green Network is a major new global initiative from the G8, constituting an international scientific consortium focused on developing green chemistry. Its main goals are to accelerate movement towards a sustainable energy and materials economy, by bringing together scientists, engineers, research institutions, firms, policy analysts and government regulators from around the world.
  5. Media Enquiries to the Department for Employment and Learning Press Office on 028 9025 7872