Our research areas
Towards Zero Waste - Reconfigurable Systems
Biological systems are incredibly efficient at recycling. We use nature as an inspiration for next-generation sustainable materials, creating self-regulating, self-repairing systems and developing new materials that are recyclable or reconfigurable.
Towards Zero Carbon - Catalytic Architectures
Our research will support New Zealand's goal for 'net zero' carbon emissions by 2050. We will explore new materials that will catch CO2 from air and waste streams. We'll also design new catalysts that will turn CO2 into green fuels.
Read more about Towards Zero Carbon - Catalytic Architectures
Towards Low Energy Tech - Hardware for Future Computing
The data centres worldwide that support our digital lifestyles use almost ten times as much electricity per year as the whole of NZ. We will develop computing materials that process information more like a brain, and that use far less energy than conventional electronics.
Read more about Towards Low Energy Tech - Hardware for Future Computing
Sustainable resource use - Mātauranga Māori Research Programme
Crosscutting these Research Programmes sits our Mātauranga Māori Research Programme. This programme provides a platform for the other three research programmes, intersecting with the theme of sustainability. We will explore old and new knowledge to grow innovative approaches and techniques based on Mātauranga Māori.
We will develop the capability and capacity of Māori and Pacific peoples in the sciences. We'll also develop the capability of scientists within the MacDiarmid Institute to engage with Māori communities. In so doing, we will contribute to the growth of Mātauranga.
Read more about Sustainable resource use - Mātauranga Māori Research Programme
Featured news & events
October 21, 2021
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s millions of tiny bits of plastic above our heads
Tiny chunks of plastic are in our skies and they may be helping cool the climate, according to resea...
October 20, 2021
Germans backing South Island green hydrogen research centre
A planned green hydrogen research centre in Dunedin now has the financial backing of both the New Ze...
Read more about Germans backing South Island green hydrogen research centre
MacDiarmid Institute
New Zealand's best scientists, engineers and educators, unified for a common goal: to make, understand, and use new materials to improve people's lives.February 20, 2019
Video transcript
The challenges facing New Zealand and the world today - clean water, renewable energy, climate change - will be solved by tomorrow's scientists and engineers - sitting in our classrooms right now, ready to be inspired. They need new materials and new technology based on those materials that haven't been discovered yet.
That's what the MacDiarmid Institute does. We are New Zealand's best scientists, engineers and educators, unified for a common goal: to make, understand, and use new materials to improve people's lives.
What is materials science
MacDiarmid Institute investigators discuss how materials science and nanotechnology can solve the big problems of our time.May 8, 2019
Video transcript
Associate Professor Nicola Gaston: Can you imagine a future where electricity is practically free, where there's clean water available for everyone and a simple blood test taken at home can help diagnose some diseases?
The technology that can make each of those things possible is based on materials science. Materials are all around us; this coffee cup, this table, even this sugar I might put in the coffee. When we make things really small, as we do in nanotechnology, we create a material that has most of its substance at the surface. With sugar, that means it dissolves quickly. But in general what it means is that we can control the properties of that material with great precision. So we can take a material, any material - it could be a metal or it could be plastic - and we can play with the surface and give it new abilities. For example, we could make it anti-bacterial or we could make it absorb more light.
The MacDiarmid Institute is a network of New Zealand's best materials scientists. Materials science is the basis of all high-tech manufacturing, including sustainable environmental innovations such as new solar cells or carbon capture technologies for climate change mitigation. We work with existing industries and we also spinout new companies. In the past 15 years we have spun out 16 new companies.
Dr Ray Thomson: One of the really exciting things that the Investigators at MacDiarmid are working on is across this whole climate change area. Sequestering carbon dioxide, improving the efficiency of photovoltaic cells through to really advanced battery storage.
Associate Professor Nicola Gaston: If we want that future, a materially sustainable future, where everyone around the world can have clean water, personalised medicine, free electricity, we need materials technologies. In the MacDiarmid Institute we bring materials scientists together and we partner with industry to create intellectual property, jobs and wealth for New Zealand.
Latest news & events
News Article
Associate Professor Franck Natali joins inaugural Breakthrough Energy Fellows Program
October 19, 2021
About us
We are a network of committed biologists, chemists, physicists and engineers who collaborate to develop innovations that will both solve big problems and boost the New Zealand economy.
What we do
Our research is creating new technologies to aid the transition to a more sustainable way of life and make our world a better place.
Our partnerships
We have ongoing partnerships with community groups, museums and other organisations to help us take science out of the lab to make it accessible, exciting and inspiring.
Check out our latest research
Daniels, R. K. & Brown, S. A. Nanowire networks: How does small-world character evolve with dimensionality? Nanoscale Horizons 6, 482–488 (2021).
Pradhan, S., Solomon, R., Gangotra, A., Yakubov, G.E., Willmott, G.R., Whitby, C.P., Hale, T.K. & Williams, M.A. Depletion of HP1α alters the mechanical properties of MCF7 nuclei. Biophysical Journal 120, 2631-2643 (2021).
Manuguri, S., van der Heijden, N.J., Nam, S.J., Narasimhan, B.N., Wei, B., Cabero Z, M.A., Yu, H., Granville, S., McGillivray, D.J., Brothers, P.J. & Williams, D.E. Polymer Micelle Directed Magnetic Cargo Assemblies Towards Spin‐wave Manipulation. Advanced Materials Interfaces 8, p.2100455 (2021)
Wang, Q., Yang, Y., Sun, F., Chen, G., Wang, J., Peng, L., Chen, W.-T., Shang, L., Zhao, J., Sun-Waterhouse, D., Zhang, T. & Waterhouse, G. I. N. Molten NaCl-Assisted Synthesis of Porous Fe-N-C Electrocatalysts with a High Density of Catalytically Accessible FeN4 Active Sites and Outstanding Oxygen Reduction Reaction Performance. Advanced Energy Materials 11, Art. No. 2100219 (2021).
Casey-Stevens, C. A., Yang, M., Weal, G. R., McIntyre, S. M., Nally, B. K. & Garden, A. L. A theoretical investigation of 38-atom CuPd clusters: the effect of potential parameterisation on structure and segregation. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 23, 15950-15964 (2021).
Meet our people
Professor Duncan McGillivray
Principal Investigator
Functional Nanostructures, Towards Zero Waste - Reconfigurable Systems
I’m interested in the physical basis of biological interactions at surfaces.
Dr Natalie Plank
Principal Investigator
Tomorrow's Electronic Devices, Towards Low Energy Tech - Hardware for Future Computing
First we have to tackle the science. And I find that really motivating.
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