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The Hub will create a seamless link between science and applications by building on our established knowledge exchange activities in quantum technologies. We will transform science into technology by developing new products, demonstrating their applications and advantages, and establishing a strong user base in diverse sectors. Our overarching ambition is to deliver a wide range of quantum sensors to underpin many new commercial applications. Our key objective is to ensure that the Hub's outputs will have been picked up by companies, or industry-led TSB projects, by the end of the funding period. The Hub will comprise: a strong fabrication component; quantum scientists with a demonstrated ability to combine scientific excellence with technological delivery; leading engineers with the broad collective expertise and connections required to develop and use new quantum sensors. We have identified, and actively involved, industry enablers to build a supply chain for quantum sensor technology. As well as direct physics connections to industry, the engineers provide strong links to relevant industrial users, thus providing information on industrial needs and enabling rapid prototype deployment in the field. To establish a coherent national collaborative effort, the Hub will include a UK network on quantum sensors and metrology, which will also exploit the connections that Prof Bongs and all Hub members have forged in Europe, the US and Asia. This inter-linkage ensures capture of the most advanced developments in quantum technology around the world for exploitation by the UK. Quantum sensors and metrology, plus some devices in quantum communication, are the only areas where laboratory prototypes have already proven superior to their best classical counterparts. This sets the stage, credibly, for rapid and disruptive applications emerging from the Hub. The selection of prototypes will be driven by commercial pull, i.e. each prototype project within the Hub must demonstrate, from the outset, industry or practitioner engagement from our engineering and/or industrial collaborators. We have strong industry support across several disciplines with the structures in place actively to manage technology and knowledge transfer to the industry sector. Particular roles are played by NPL and e2V. We will closely collaborate with NPL as metrology end-user on clock, magnetometer and potentially Watt balance developments with a lecturer-level Birmingham-NPL fellow contributed by Birmingham University and our PRDAs spending ~17 man-years in addition to 3-5 PhD students on these joint projects in the Advanced Metrology Laboratory/incubator space. E2v have a unique industrial manufacturing/R&D facility co-located within the School of Physics and Astronomy at Nottingham that has already catalysed the expansion of their activities into the Quantum Technology domain. Public Engagement conveying the Hub's breakthroughs will be a high priority - for example annually at the Royal Society Summer Exhibitions. In addition to cohort-training of 80 PhD students working within the Hub, the Hub will contribute to the training of ~500 PhD students via electronically-shared lectures (many already running within the e-learning graduate schools MPAGS, MEGS, SEPNET and SUPA) across the institutions within the Hub. The Hub will create an internationally-leading centre of excellence with major impact in the area of quantum sensors and metrology. To widen the impact of the Hub and ensure long-term sustainability, we will actively pursue European and other international collaborative funding for both underlying fundamental research and the technology development.

30 years' research on metal biorecovery from wastes has paid scant attention to strong CONTEMPORARY demands for (i) conservation of dwindling vital resources (e.g platinum group metals (PGM), recently rare earth elements, (REE), base metals (BMs) and uranium) and (ii) the unequivocal need to extract/refine them in a non-polluting, low-energy way. 21stC technologies increasingly rely on nanomaterials which have novel properties not seen in bulk materials. Bacteria can fabricate nanoparticles (NPs), bottom up, atom by atom, with exquisite fine control offered by enzymatic synthesis and bio-scaffolding that chemistry cannot emulate. Bio-nanoparticles have proven applications in green chemistry, low carbon energy, environmental protection and potentially in photonic applications. Bacteria can be grown cheaply at scale for facile production. We have shown that bacteria can make nanomaterials from secondary wastes, yielding, in some cases, a metallic mixture which can show better activity than 'pure' nanoparticles. Such fabrication of structured bimetallics can be hard to achieve chemically. For some metals like rare earths and uranium (which often co-occur in wastes) their biorecovery from scraps e.g. magnets (rare earths) and wastes (mixed U/rare earths), when separated, can make 'enriched' solids for delivery into further commercial refining to make new magnets (rare earths) or nuclear fuel (U). Biofabricating these solids is often beyond the ability of living cells but they can form scaffolds, with enzymatic processes harnessed to make biomineral precursors, often selectively. B3 will invoke tiered levels of complexity, maturity and risk. (i) Base metal mining wastes (e.g. Cu, Ni) will be biorefined into concentrated sludges for chemical reprocessing or alternatively to make base metal-bionanoproducts. (ii) Precious metal wastes will be converted into bionanomaterials for catalysis, environmental and energy applications. (iii) Rare earth metal wastes will be biomineralised for enriched feed into further refining or into new catalysts. (iv) Uranium-waste will be biorefined into mineral precursors for commercial nuclear fuels. In all, the environment will be spared dual impacts of both primary source pollution AND the high energy demand of processing from primary 'crude'. Metallic scraps are tougher, requiring acids for dissolution. Approaches will include the use of acidophilic bacteria, use of alkalinizing enzymes or using bacteria to first make a chemical catalyst (benignly) which can then convert the target metal of interest from the leachate into new nanomaterials (a hybrid living/nonliving system, already shown). Environmentally-friendly leaching & acids recycle will be evaluated and leaching processes optimised via extant predictive models. The interface between biology, chemistry, mineralogy and physics, exemplified by nanoparticles held in their unique 'biochemical nest', will receive special focus, being where major discoveries will be made; cutting edge technologies will relate structure to function, and validate the contribution of upstream waste doping or 'blending'; these, as well as novel materials processing, will increase bio-nanoparticle efficacy. Secondary wastes to be biorefined will include magnet scraps (rare earths), print cartridges (precious metals), road dusts (PMs, Fe,Ce) & metallurgical wastes (mixed rare earths/base metals/uranium). Their complex, often refractory nature gives a higher 'risk' than mine wastes but in compensation, the volumes are lower, & the scope for 'doping' or 'steering' to fabricate/steer engineered nanomaterials is correspondingly higher. B3 will have an embedded significant (~15%) Life Cycle Analysis iterative assessment of highlighted systems, with end-user trialling (supply chains; validations in conjunction with an industrial platform). B3 welcomes new 'joiners' from a raft of problem holders brought via Partner network backup.