Membranes offer exciting opportunities for more efficient, lower energy, more sustainable industrial gas and liquid separations. However, high performance polymeric, inorganic and ceramic membranes all suffer from problems with decay of performance over time, through relaxation of the membrane material and/or the build-up of other material on the membrane. The ambitious vision of the SynFabFun project is to create membranes which do not suffer significantly from ageing or fouling over the lifetime of an industrial plant.

The PhD student will be involved in the development of new routes to polymeric membranes by in-situ polymerization on a support surface.  The starting point is a range of polymers invented in Manchester – Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity (PIMs) – which demonstrate exceptional performance for gas separations, but whose commercial exploitation has been hindered by the effects of ageing. 

Qualification

Applications are invited from candidates with, or expecting to obtain, a minimum of an upper second class UK undergraduate (or equivalent) in chemistry, materials science or chemical engineering, should have excellent laboratory skills for polymer synthesis, and should clearly understand aspects of materials science and engineering relevant to the development of membrane materials. The successful candidate will have exceptional team-working and communication skills, so as to interact effectively with other researchers at Manchester and collaborating Universities

Further Information

Please submit a cover letter and CV with your application. The cover letter must contain a short paragraph covering your research interests and your motivation for the project.

For more information and informal enquiries please contact Professor Peter Budd:peter.budd@manchester.ac.uk.

Funding Details

The Studentship is for a period of 42 months and covers tuition fees and an annual tax-free stipend commencing at £13,863.