The Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology, otherwise known as SMaRT @UNSW, was officially launched on Wednesday 4th March by Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. Other speakers were UNSW’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Fred Hilmer, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Les Field, Centre Director Prof. Veena Sahajwalla and Mr Tony Dixon, General Manager - Sales & Marketing for OneSteel representing Australian industry. Attending were Professor Sahajwalla’s own research group, staff from the School of Materials Science& Engineering, and a large number of visiting industry representatives and academics.

The Centre has been in operation for just under a year and benefits from being a cross-Faculty research hub which aims to provide multi-disciplinary answers to multifaceted problems.

The Centre’s champion is its Director, Professor Sahajwalla, who has won international recognition and numerous awards for her research into the use of waste plastics as a source of cheap and plentiful carbon for use in the Electric Arc Furnace steelmaking process. OneSteel has been fully supportive of the project from the start and holds an international patent in this green steelmaking process. Further information on the opening can also be found at News@UNSW SMaRT news story