Professor James Maxwell arrived from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in America in October and has wasted no time in delving into research.

He has arrived just as La Trobe’s state-of-the-art engineering building is due to be opened.

“I thought Bendigo had unique university that has regional ties that were useful to me,” he said.

“Right now we have a lot of individual professors (and researchers) doing good work but I’m hoping as a department we have some commonalities.

“I’ve found over the years, large groups of researchers are more successful than individual investigators. They all have unique capabilities to bring to the table.”

Professor Maxwell’s work in advanced materials looks at establishing new materials that are cheaper, created more quickly and better for the environment.

“We build cars out of steel and rubber because it’s cheap and available. What haven’t we thought of that we can make a car out of,” he said. 

“Iron is heavy and it takes a bit (of effort) to mine it. What if we could grow materials out of agriculturally-derived chemicals? That's the type of thing I am working on now.”

One example that Professor Maxwell said he is studying is being able to growing carbon fibre from soy bean oil.

“I’ve been working on the laser deposition process for over 20 years and it’s finally got to where we can grow materials fairly quickly out of gasses and chemicals,” he said. 

“It means we can create alloys or metal that haven't been made before. What we’re trying to do is increase the number materials we can print (in a 3D printer).

“Ultimately we want to create 3D printer that can print many types material such as metal, ceramics or plastic.

“When you can switch between one material and another, you can build an entire system like a car. You can print each part and hand assemble it.” 

Professor Maxwell hopes the new engineering building along with the new Bendigo Tech School can revitalise the regional manufacturing industry.

“I’m hoping the tech school can help some of our youth in Bendigo discover new possibilities they haven’t considered before,” he said.

“A struggle in education all over the world is helping youth understand what they really could do. They may not know what’s possible.

“Giving that to the youth is important.”

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