Bringing expertise in the industrialisation of textile processes and products to new technologies.
Current activities
Dr Shaun Smith currently has responsibility for working with Theme, Stream and Project Leaders in ensuring that individual research projects are integrated within each theme and where applicable across the CSIRO Future Manufacturing Flagship (FMF) portfolio. Dr Smith also assists the Flagship office in project decision making for issues such as:
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resourcing
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investment
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commercialisation.
Dr Smith also leads a carbon nanotube yarn research team for FMF, exploring the development of carbon nanotubes to create new structures for high value-add applications. The team is producing dry-spun carbon nanotubes and investigating applications for them in biomedical devices and instrumentation.
To do this, they are using CSIRO's expertise in:
- reactor design and construction
- physical and organic chemistry
- catalyst chemistry
- fibre physics
- yarn structure, formation and properties
- dispersal of nanotubes into polymers
- electron microscopy.
The team has built reactors for 'growing' carbon nanotubes that are being used to explore a range of applications, exploiting their unique characteristics:
- high strength
- good electrical conductivity
- excellent thermal conductivity
- biocompatibility
- flexibility
- low weight.
Our research aim is to improve yarn quality and properties and to find end-user applications for these technologies, particularly within the biomedical manufacturing industry.
“My main job was to ensure that the technology transfer trials ran smoothly and successfully – it’s quite difficult to take a technology straight from the laboratory bench and pilot plant into an industrial environment.”
Dr Shaun Smith, Future Manufacturing Flagship
Dr Smith is an expert in the industrialisation of textile processes.
He brings expertise, developed from his work in the productivity and commercialisation of wool end-products, to new technologies.
Background
It was during Dr Smith's doctoral studies that he first heard about CSIRO.
'I found out about the wool fibre, its complex structure and associated chemistry from the numerous fantastic papers and textbooks written by CSIRO scientists in Australia.'
Dr Smith then spent six years working for the International Wool Secretariat (now The Woolmark Company) on technical aspects of transferring new coloration processes to the apparel textile industry.
Dr Smith’s trials in the textile mills around the world often brought him into contact with CSIRO researchers who were working with the processing industry.
In many instances he worked closely with CSIRO scientists as CSIRO coloration technologies were transferred to industry.
'My main job was to ensure that the technology transfer trials ran smoothly and successfully - it’s quite difficult to take a technology straight from the laboratory bench and pilot plant into an industrial environment.'
He joined CSIRO in 1997 as a Research Scientist to work on the development of new coloration and bleaching processes for wool and wool blends.
'The chance to come and work with the top textile researchers in the world was something I jumped at, even if it did mean leaving the UK,' says Dr Smith.
Academic qualifications
Dr Smith has been awarded a:
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Bachelor of Science with Honours from the Department of Colour Chemistry at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1987
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Doctor of Philosophy, also from the Department of Colour Chemistry at the University of Leeds in 1991.
His doctoral research was into the effect of reactive dyes on damage to the wool fibre during dyeing.
Achievements
Recently, Dr Smith led two Australian Wool Innovation-funded projects.
His project team developed a new bleaching treatment that produces a better white on wool than is currently achievable.
In a second project, Dr Smith worked with partner mills in China to facilitate the adoption of dyeing technologies developed by CSIRO, such as Sirolan LTD™ - a low tempertaure dyeing (LTD) process. These technologies have already been widely adopted in the traditional wool processing areas of Northern Europe.
Collaboration
A major collaborator is the NanoTech Institute, University of Texas at Dallas, USA, with whom we hold a platform patent on the solid-state processing of carbon nanotubes.
We continually explore the possibility of establishing collaborations with leading groups in the carbon nanotube and other advanced fibrous materials research communities.
Find out more about the CSIRO Future Manufacturing Flagship.
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