Development and scale up of home cleaning product formulations to perform in water soluble pods

This 12 month Master's by Research project in collaboration with Organica (U.K.) Ltd aims to develop, improve and scale up home cleaning product formulations to give optimum performance whilst being suitable for use in a water soluble pod which reduces plastic waste #chemistry #chemeng

Organica (U.K.) Ltd is an innovative and growing private label manufacturer of household cleaning and laundry products. These products are manufactured for major supermarkets and retailers across the UK. Organica has a strong sustainability ethos and is developing its range of products manufactured in water soluble pods. The end consumer mixes these pods water in a reusable trigger bottle, giving a liquid product whilst hugely reducing the amount of plastic being produced for single-use trigger bottles. The ambition is that these products will also be delivered in lined cardboard that will be fully recyclable, therefore ensuring the products are well-maintained during transport whilst keeping packaging waste to a minimum.

This project will review, adapt and refine existing product formulations to ensure they can be used in soluble pods. This includes the challenge of reducing the water content whilst ensuring the product performance remains as expected. Once the formulation has been successfully adapted, a scale-up exercise will be completed to ensure that it is adaptable to large scale manufacture.

This is an exciting opportunity to be at the frontline of new product development, benefiting from lab access and expertise from Organica (U.K.) Ltd and Lancaster University. This project has the potential to save huge amounts of plastic waste and encourage a sector move to circular economy manufacture.

Candidates should have a minimum 2:2 in chemistry or chemical engineering. You should be highly motivated and have relevant laboratory experience.

Deadline for applications: Midnight Monday 13th June 2022

Start date: July 2022

Project ref LCEI-131

Eligibility

Before applying for this opportunity please download and read the Graduate Researcher Application Criteria

Non-UK/home candidates: For information on home/international fee eligibility please see the university fee status webpage. From 1st January 2021, EU students are required to have a visa to enter into the UK as well as other international categories. Please check these details to see if you would need to apply for a visa and indicate this on your criteria document.

Enterprise & academic partners

This project will be supervised by:

• Dr Julien Doulcet
• Dr Farid Aiouache
• Noel Doyle, Organica (U.K.) Ltd

Organica (U.K.) Ltd is an innovative and growing private label manufacturer of household cleaning and laundry products. These products are manufactured for major supermarkets and retailers across the UK. Organica has a strong sustainability ethos and is developing its range of products manufactured in water soluble pods.

This project is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and is subject to funding confirmation.